In the meanwhile the lass in question lay stretched out on her back, watching with hectic interest the hurried movements of the head nurse. There wasn’t very much of Gretzel left; just a shriveled body, a thin mouth, a straight, sensitive nose, a pair of blue eyes, and a wealth of light hair. But the eyes were quite perfect. So deep and clear, so timid and yet so wise were these that as they peered out of the haggardness of their surroundings they gave the effect of a maid within a maid. It was as though some other soul, unrelated to this pain-racked body, were peering through the mask of her gaunt features. The eyes were younger and fresher and stronger than the rest of her. At present they were unusually alert. In contrast to the isolated boarding-house room from which they had brought her, life here fairly buzzed. The plaints and groanings of her fellow patients, the shadow-like movements of the nurses, the constant coming and going of the young doctors on their unknown errands, the catlike tread of life through the night, the undercurrent of suspense, and her own helplessness in the midst of it kept her on guard. The nurses, drawn to her at once, tried to reassure her, but to little purpose, because Gretzel believed nothing of what they whispered. People had lied to her all her life. When her father had told her she would soon be well and that then he would take her far out into the country, he had lied. When her father was killed, her mother had lied to her, saying that daddy had only gone away for a little while to prepare a home for them both. Then her mother had died and every one had lied about that. They said that she had gone to join daddy and that some day she would send for Gretzel. Finally the landlady had lied when she had been hurried off into the ambulance. This woman had assured Gretzel that she might possibly find her mother at the hospital. She hadn’t found her mother—the nurses had never heard of her mother. So now, with her thin lips tight together, she listened, believing nothing, but kept her eyes wide open ready for what might happen next.