In the act of going out Win turned, bewildered and expecting horror.  Head down, her hands covering her burned face, the nurse came staggering toward the door.  Hair and cap were on fire.  All over the white dress and apron were dotted little blue tongues of flame that had spouted out from the bursting lamp.

Often such an accident had been lightly prophesied by this very woman.  The spirit sent up for the hospital was of the cheapest.  Peter Rolls was “not in business for his health!”

Dazed by the deafening noise, and shocked to the very heart by the woman’s shriek of pain, Win was not conscious of thought.  She did not tell herself to spring to the nearest bed, tear off the covering, stop the nurse before she could rush wildly into the corridor, and wrap her in the blanket.  All she knew for a moment was that she had done and was doing these things, that she was using her strength to hold the maddened creature, and all the while calling out for help.

The doctor had not yet reached the end of the long corridor, and the explosion and cries brought him and others running.  Vaguely Win was conscious that there were women there, maids who cleaned floors and windows, and that there were two or three men besides Dr. Marlow.  She thought that he ordered some of them out and gave directions to others, but the scene sharpened into detail only when she heard herself told to stay and give assistance.

She aiding the doctor, the nurse’s burns were dressed.  The little quivering creature, hastily undressed, was put to bed, face, head, arms, and hands covered with oil and bandaged.  It was not until another nurse—­telephoned for from somewhere to somewhere—­had arrived, and the invalid had been given an opiate, that Win realized the tingling pain in her own fingers.

“Why, yes, so I am burned a little!” she exclaimed when the doctor asked to see her hands.  “But it’s nothing to matter.  I can go back to work now.  Nurse is all right.”

“No, it’s nothing to matter, and you can go back to work, all right,” briskly echoed Marlow, who was no coddler of any hands at Peter Rolls’s; “that is, you can when I’ve patched you up a bit.  And nurse isn’t going to be bad, either.  She won’t be disfigured, I can guarantee that—­thanks to you.”

“Thanks to me?” Win echoed.

“Yes, just that.  Perhaps you don’t realize that you probably saved her life.”

“No.  I—­I don’t think I’ve realized anything yet.”  She found herself suddenly wanting to cry, but remembered a day on the Monarchic (as she always did remember if tears felt near) and swallowed the rising lump in her throat.

“Well, don’t bother about it.  You can get conceited later.  Here, drink this to quiet your nerves in case you feel jumpy, and now run along.  It’ll be all right for you downstairs.  The news will have got to your dep by this time and they’ll know why you’re late.”

Win “ran along” and found the doctor’s prophecy correct The news had bounded ahead of her.