"Splendid!" His lips curled in a pleasant smile. "Just one long, beautiful blank." "And the head?" "Jammy. That's what it feels like. How it looks, I don't know." "We'll see later when I do the dressings." She went off to the boy. He also was a Canadian officer, and his name was Robin McKay. She lingered awhile in talk. "Strikes me my military career is over, and I'll just have to hump round real estate in Winnipeg on a wooden leg." "They aren't going to cut your leg off, you silly boy!" she laughed. "And what do you mean by 'humping round real estate?'" "I'm a land surveyor. That's to say, my father is. See here: When are they going to send me back? I'm afraid of this country." "Why?" "It's so lonesome. I don't know a soul." "We'll fix that up all right for you," she said cheerily. "Don't worry." The morning routine of the hospital began. In its appointed course came the time for dressings. Camilla, her nerves under control, went to Shileto. "I've got to worry you, but I'll try to hurt as little as I can." "Go ahead. Never mind me." A probationer stood by, serving the laden wheel-table. At first, the symmetrically bandaged head seemed that of a thousand cases with which she had dealt. But when the crisp brown hair came to view, her hand trembled ever so little. She avoided touching it as far as was possible, for she remembered its feel. Dead, forgotten words rose lambent in her memory: "_It crackles like a cat's back. Let me see if there are sparks_." But in the midst of a great shaven patch there was a horrible scalp-wound which claimed her deftest skill. And she worked with steady fingers and uncovered the maimed brows and eyelids and cheekbones. How the sight had been preserved was a miracle. She cleansed the wounds with antiseptics and freed the eyelashes. She bent over him with deliberate intent. "You can open your eyes for a second or two. You can see all right?" "Rather. I can see your belt." "Hold on, then." With her swift craft, she blindfolded him anew, completed the bandaging, laid him back on his pillow, and went off with the probationer, wheeling the table to the other cases. Later in the day, she was doing him some trivial service. "What's the good of lying in bed all day?" he asked. "I want to get up and walk about." "You've got a bit of a temperature." "How much?" "Ninety-nine point eight." "Call that a temperature? I've gone about with a hundred and three." "When was that?" "When I first went out to Canada. I'm English, you know--only left the Old Country in Nineteen thirteen. But, when the war broke out, I joined up with the first batch of Canadians--lucky to start with a commission. Lord, it was hell's delight!" "So I've been given to understand," said Camilla. "But what about your temperature of a hundred and three?" "I was a young fool," said he, "and I didn't care what happened to me." "Why?" she asked.