Obediently the White Linen Nurse pattered up the stairs and returned with the half-depleted bottle. Frankly interested, she recrossed the threshold of the room and delivered her glass treasure into the hands of the Senior Surgeon as he stood by his desk. Raising herself to her tiptoes, she noted with eminent satisfaction that the three big cups on the other side of the desk had all been drained to their dregs. Then very bluntly before her eyes the Senior Surgeon took the malted-milk bottle and poured its remaining contents out quite wantonly into his waste-basket. Then equally bluntly he took the White Linen Nurse by the shoulders and marched her out of the room. “For God’s sake,” he said, “get out of this room, and stay out!” _Bang!_ the big door slammed behind her. Like a snarling fang, the lock bit into its catch. “Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse. Even just to herself, all alone there in the big black hall, she was perfectly polite. “Y-e-s, sir,” she repeated softly. With a slightly sardonic grin on his face, the Senior Surgeon resumed his pacing up and down, round and round, on and on and on. At one o’clock, in the dull, clammy chill of earliest morning, he stopped long enough to light his hearthfire. At two o’clock he stopped again to pile on a trifle more wood. At three o’clock he dallied for an instant to close a window. The new day seemed strangely cold. At four o’clock dawn, the wonder, the miracle, the long-despaired-of, quickened wanly across the east; then suddenly, more like a phosphorescent breeze than a glow, the pale, pale yellow sunshine came wafting through the green gloom of the garden. The vigil was over. Stumbling out into the shadowy hall to greet the new day and the new beginning, the Senior Surgeon almost tripped and fell over the White Linen Nurse, sitting all huddled up and drowsy-eyed in a gray little heap on his outer threshold. The sensation of stepping upon a human body is not a pleasant one. It smote the Senior Surgeon nauseously through the nerves of his stomach. “What are you doing here?” he fairly screamed at her. “Just keeping you company, sir,” yawned the White Linen Nurse. Before her hand could reach her mouth again, another great childish yawn overwhelmed her. “Just--watching with you, sir,” she finished more or less inarticulately. “Watching with me?” snarled the Senior Surgeon, resentfully. “Why should you watch with me?” Like the frightened flash of a bird the heavy lashes went swooping down across the pink cheeks and lifted as suddenly again. “Because you’re my--_man_,” yawned the White Linen Nurse. Almost roughly the Senior Surgeon reached down and pulled the White Linen Nurse to her feet.