"Nurse," she interrupted, her voice carrying through the 'phone, "perhaps
that patient could have our bed. Captain Mayberry is to go to the private
wing."
In a few words the nurse gathered Dorothy's meaning.
Then she told the matron, speaking through the transmitter, to hold the
applicant.
"Would you like to come with me?" she asked Dorothy, as she prepared to
interview the prospective patient. "Miss Pumfret will be here for some
time yet."
Down the broad marble steps, that seemed to exude everything antiseptic
and sterilized, Dorothy hurried along after the head nurse. Into a large
hall, then across this into a small waiting-room they passed.
"The patient is only ill from neglect and nervous exhaustion," explained
the nurse, "or I would not invite you down."
A second white-capped and white-robed attendant opened the door. Dorothy
stepped in first. A woman sat on a leather chair in the far corner of the
room.
"She is very weak," explained the second nurse to the first, "and I really
was afraid to let her go."
The woman raised her head.
"Miss Dearing!" exclaimed Dorothy, too surprised to suppress her
astonishment, "Why, I am so--glad I have found you!"
The woman tried to open her lips, but a sudden movement of her head showed
that she had fainted.
"And you know her?" asked the nurses, quickly restoring the woman to
consciousness with simple restoratives.
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