"I would _much_ rather not go," she replied--"but I'm going just because I'm not sure of my duty in the matter. I swore at our marriage to love, honor and cherish him. I don't love him--I think I never honored him--I'm not sure that it will do any good for me to cherish him--but I'll try to be kind while his life is in danger--when the danger has passed, the cherishing shall cease." She stole a look at the man beside. "A queer philosophy, you think doubtless--and possibly it is; but toward some few people, my husband among them, I have as much feeling as a piece of marble--rather less indeed. Don't try to understand me, Montague--you can't; I don't understand myself." She was overwrought, he saw. This sudden call to confront a condition such as she had never anticipated--the distressing fact that Lorraine, injured maybe unto death, had asked for her--had stretched her nerves to attenuation. It was not for him to tell her what she should do. In truth, he did not know. The one thing that made it difficult was Lorraine's request. If it were not for that he would not have hesitated. But it is hard to refuse a dying man--or one who may be dying. "Steady yourself, Stephanie!" he said, as the car ran in under the _porte cochere_ of the Hospital. "I am steadied," she answered. "I'll be all right when we enter--I'm not going to collapse or shriek or make a scene, you may be sure." He rang the bell, gave the name, and they passed into the reception-room. In a moment a white uniformed nurse entered--a woman of middle age, quiet and business-like. "Mrs. Lorraine?" she asked. "Yes," Stephanie answered. "I am Mrs. Bangs, the head nurse, Mrs. Lorraine. Your husband has not regained consciousness, I am sorry to say. Doctor Wilton has been advised of your arrival and he'll see you just as soon as possible. Will you come into the resident physician's office and wait? It will be only a moment, I'm sure." They crossed the corridor, were shown into the office, and the nurse went about her duties. There is not much sentiment in a hospital attendant--at least toward those not patients--and the patients themselves are but cases in the abstract. Stephanie looked at Pendleton and smiled. "You see--I'm steady," she said, holding up her hand. "A trifle too steady for an injured man's wife, I fear--though, I suppose, they all know the state of our--affairs." "Every one knows it--if they've read the newspapers," Pendleton returned. "And it's safe to assume that they have; and that they believed all they read as well--and then some. It's a common failing. I'd do the same about someone else, I reckon--if it happened to interest me." "_There_ is just the difference--it wouldn't interest you, nor me, nor any right-thinking person." "Then the right-thinking persons are very scarce in this world!" she smiled. "I shouldn't call them scarce," he replied--"very much in the minority would be better."