No one who had seen Denham Ivor only on parade or in society, would have singled him out as likely to be an especially good nurse; but Roy soon learnt this side of the man. A modern hospital nurse would doubtless have found a great deal to complain of in his methods, and not a little to arouse her laughter. Many of his arrangements were highly masculine. The room was seldom in anything like order; and whatever he used he commonly plumped down afterwards in the most unlikely places. But his patience and attention never failed; he never forgot essentials; he never seemed to think of himself, or to require rest. Day after day he remained in that upstairs room with the invalid, only once in the twenty-four hours going out of the house for half-an-hour's turn, that he might report Roy's condition to Colonel Baron, meeting him and standing a few yards distant. The usual nine days of full eruption, following upon forty-eight hours of fever, were gone through, with, of course, abundance of discomfort and restlessness. Despite the comparatively mild nature of his illness, Roy fell away fast in flesh and strength, while Ivor managed with a minimum of repose. If Roy were able to get a short sleep, Denham used that opportunity to do the same himself, but in some mysterious way he always contrived to be awake before Roy woke up. His handsome bronzed face grew less bronzed with the confinement and lack of exercise. So far as he knew how to guard against the spread of infection, he did his best. No one beside himself and the doctor entered the sick room, except a wizened old Frenchwoman, herself frightful from the effects of the same dire disease, who was hired to come in each morning for half-an-hour, while Ivor went out, that she might put the room into something like order. For the rest, the gallant young Guardsman, sweet Polly's lover, undertook the whole. Then tokens of improvement began; and Colonel Baron sent a letter home which cheered Molly's sore heart; and, just when all promised well for a quick recovery, violent inflammation of one ear set in. For days and nights the boy suffered tortures, and sleep was impossible for him, therefore for his nurse. Roy, in his weakened state, sometimes broke down and cried bitterly with the pain, imploring Ivor never to let Molly know that he had cried. "She'd think me so girlish," he said, while tears rolled down his thin cheeks, marked by half-a-dozen red pits. "Please don't ever tell her!"