Gradually these troubled visions faded, and with the steady healing of his wound came healthy sleep and tranquillity of mind. Finally he came to himself; and one bright morning in May was carried on board a hospital ship and transferred, across the most efficiently guarded strip of water in the world, to a convalescent hospital in a great country house in Kent. That night he slept in a little room in a long passage full of doors, behind each of which lay a boy, seldom older than himself, who had squandered his youth, mayhap a limb, too often his whole constitution, in the service of his country. Next morning, when he awoke, the sun was streaming down the passage. All the doors stood wide open, and the air was rent by a raucous and irregular chorus, proceeding from the doorways and beginning: Nurse, Nurse, I’m feeling rather worse; Come and kiss me on my little brow! Words of rebuke were audible, and the riot died down. A majestic young woman, admirably composed, presented herself at Roy’s door. "Good morning, Captain Birnie. I hope you slept well." "Thank you, I did," replied Roy. "Are you the Sister?" Across the passage came a voice: "Let me present you, sir, to Little Lily, our Cross Red nurse! She—" The lady indicated whirled round upon the offender, whose grinning face, partially obscured by a patch over one eye, could be discerned upon the pillow of the bed in the room opposite. "Mr. Abercrombie," she announced, "if you can’t behave I shall report you to the Matron." Mr. Abercrombie was all contrition at once. "All right, Nurse!" he announced. "I apologise! I only want to warn you, sir," he added to Roy, "that she’s married! But she never tells us that until it’s too late! _Do_ be careful!" Little Lily, the Cross Red nurse—otherwise the Lady Hermione Mulready—turned an unruffled countenance to Roy. It was true that she was married; she possessed what Mr. Abercrombie would have called "a perfectly good husband of her own" in the Irish Guards. She had once possessed two brothers also, somewhat akin in appearance and disposition to the effervescent Abercrombie. Perhaps that was why she suffered his impertinences so readily. "Here is your breakfast, Captain Birnie," she continued. "The Matron says you can’t have bacon yet; but if you are good you may reach an ordinary diet next week." Roy thanked her. "After breakfast," he asked politely, "may I write a letter—just one? And see a paper? I’m a bit behind with the war, and—" "You can have anything you want, in reason, so long as you lie still and don’t fidget. We have enough babies in this place already!" announced Little Lily, with a withering glance in the direction of the room opposite where Master Abercrombie was acting foolishly. "It’s all right," Roy assured her. "You will have no trouble with me. I’m quite an old man, really: a kind husband, and an indulgent father, and all that," he added, with a curious little air of pomposity.