"Very well, then, we won't," Marjorie answered affectionately. "Every one must gang their own gait! You don't like what I like; I don't like what you like. The great thing is to be happy, and we're both that. Tell me something of your work. It always interests me. Have you had any new adventures in Whitechapel?" "Everything has been much the same," she said, "except that a very wonderful personality has come into the hospital." "Oh, how delightful! A man, of course! Do tell me all about him!" "His name is Joseph. It sounds odd, but he doesn't seem to use his surname at all. I did hear it, but I have forgotten. He is simply Joseph. He was hurt, though not nearly as badly as he might have been, by some falling planks from a house they were building. But he was in a dreadfully exhausted and rundown condition--nearly starved indeed. He is a great scholar and scientist, but he was ruined some years ago because he made a speech against God and religion at Cambridge, before all the dignitaries." "And are you converting him?" "No. That is no woman's work, with this man. He is in a strange state. We have nursed him back to something like health, but his mind seems quite empty. At first, when we had some talks together, he railed against God--always with the proviso that there wasn't any God! Now he is changed, with returning health. He is like an empty vessel, waiting for something to be poured into it. He neither disbelieves nor believes. Something has washed his mind clear." "How extraordinary!" "Extraordinary you say; but listen! Three days ago--it was in the early evening--he called me to his bedside. He drew his hand from the bedclothes and laid it on my arm. How I thrilled at the touch, I cannot explain...." "But, my dear, think of Tom--This is extraordinary!" "I've thought of Thomas; but, Marjorie, you cannot know--it was not that kind of love. It was nothing like love. Perhaps I put it badly, but you jumped to quite a wrong conclusion. It was something quite different. His eyes seemed to transfix me. The touch--the eyes--the thrill they sent through me will remain as long as I live! But listen. He spoke to me as he hadn't spoken before. 'Mary,' he said--" "Did he call you _Mary_?" "He had never done so before--he did then. Before I had always been 'Nurse' to him." "Well, go on, dear--I am quite interested." "He said, 'Mary, you are going off duty in a few minutes. Go to the upper chamber of 24, Grey Street, Hoxton, and walk straight in. There is one that has need of you.' I was about to expostulate, but he fell back in exhaustion, and I called the house surgeon." "You surely didn't go?" "Yes, I went," Mary went on rapidly. "Something made me go. The low door of Number 24 was open. I climbed till I got to the top. There was no light anywhere. It was a miserable foggy evening. I felt for a door and found one at last. It yielded to my hand and I entered an attic which was immediately under the roof.