"Not at all," said I; "not at all. I am only not hungry. I
will go back, if you please, to something I can do."
I busied myself restlessly about the ward, till one of the
men, I forget who, asked me to sing to them. It had become a
standing ordinance of the place; and people said, a very
beneficial one. But to-night I had not thought I could sing.
Yet when he asked me, the power came. I did not sit down 'as
usual;' standing at the foot of Mr. Thorold's bed I sang,
leaning hard against strength and love out of sight; and my
voice was as clear as ever.
The ward was so very still that I should have thought nothing
could come in or go out without my being conscious of a stir.
However, the absolute hush continued, until it occurred to me
that I must have been singing a great while, and I half turned
and glanced down the room. My singing was done; for there
stood Dr. Sandford, as still as I had been, with folded arms
near the door. I went towards him immediately.
"Do you have this sort of concert most evenings?" he inquired,
as he took my hand.
"Always, Dr. Sandford."
"I never heard you sing so well anywhere else," he remarked.
"I never had such an audience. But now, you remember my
request this morning, Dr. Sandford?"
"I never forget your requests," he said, gravely. And we went
to business.
From one to another, from one to another. Generally with no
more but a pleasant or a kind word from the doctor to the
patient; but two or three times the doctor's hand came to his
chin for a moment, before such a word was spoken. - It did not
in those cases tell me much. I had known, or guessed, the
truth of them before. I suppose every good nurse must get a
power or faculty of reading symptoms and seeing the state of
the patient, both actual and probable. I was not shocked nor
startled. But the shock and the start were all the greater,
when pausing before the one cot which held what I cared for in
this world, the doctor's fingers were thrust suddenly through
his thick auburn hair. He went on immediately with the due
attention to Mr. Thorold's wounds; and I waited and stood by,
with no outward sign, I think, of the death at my heart. Even
through all the round, I kept my place by Dr. Sandford's side,
doing whatever was wanted of me, attending, at least in
outward guise, to what was going on. So one can do, while the
whole soul and life are concentrated on some point unconnected
with it all, outside of it all, in the distance. Towards that
point I slowly made my way, as the doctor went through his
rounds; and came up with it at last in the little retiring
room which he called his own and where our conversation of the
morning had been held.