They did not find them till the next day. There were ten or twelve hospitals in and about the city, some of them in the suburbs and far apart. Certain doctors knew the two nurses, and one directed them to a hospital which turned out to be a kind of military city with streets and sentries; but they were not there. The hospitals were all working smoothly at the time. There had been no large battle since Antietam, and there were few of those grim, dreary, and confused scenes which at times made the hospitals seem sterner battle-fields than any at the front. Nevertheless Mavering felt and expressed a sense of injury. "You don't mean to say I'm as tough as all this!" "I haven't said anything about your toughness. Maybe you are. We'll try Mount Pleasant now. That will be the last to-night." And they rode away from the military city. "You know her," continued Mavering. "She is what you would call, after duly considering the adjective, select. She doesn't like realism, raw humanity, and irregular event. She desires humanity to be cooked and served in courses, even to be ordered up to the rules of art. By which figurative language I mean to say that I don't see, that no ready interpretation presents itself, that I'm interested to know who persuaded her to take a ticket to the suburbs of hell." "You'll know if we find them." "It was, then, this Miss?--" "Bourn." "Bourn. Exactly. Of that undiscovered country. Having discovered who induced the buying of the ticket aforesaid, there remains how she did it, this Miss--a--Bourn." Late the following day they came to a hospital that had been a warehouse and stood on rising ground, a little back from the river, where a white steamer was lying at the wharf. There were sheds around the building, and new wooden steps built up to the door where the freight had once been discharged. A man at the door said Mrs. Mavering and Miss Bourn were within, and took their names. Beyond him they saw accurately straight rows of cots, each with a head at one end. In a few moments he came back and said the two nurses would be off duty in an hour. They walked to and fro, past their horses fastened in one of the sheds, till the dusk grew around them. The hospital windows were lit. Lights began to gleam beyond the river and the flat lands. A mist rose and clung to the water, crouched and ghostly. There was no moon, but the stars were out, and one could hear the lapping of the cold water among the reeds. They did not see Rachel and Helen come from the wide door down the new wooden steps, or notice them till they were near, coming hooded and cloaked through the dusk. Mavering admitted to himself a personal and direct surprise. His last memories of Rachel were of tears, and then pale dignity and a kind of fine repellence. But she did not betray the past in manner. He could not see her face. She said: "There will be scallops for supper, gentlemen, and then may we have your adventures?"