Everybody had said he was brave, the head nurse, the day nurse, the night nurse, the woman who brought in the meals, the woman who scrubbed the floor.  All this had kept her up.  If anybody paid any kind of tribute to him, realized in any way what he was, this was life to her.

After the doctor left, as the nurse was with him, she walked up and down the halls, too restless to be quiet.

At the end of one hall she could look down on the fragrant leafy park.  Yes, summer was nigh.  Where a little while before had been only white blossoms, there were fewer white now, more pink, some red, many to match the yellow of the sun.  The whole hillside of swaying; boughs seemed to quiver with happiness.  Her eyes wandered farther down to the row of houses at the foot of the park.  She could see the dreadful spot on the street, the horrible spot.  She could see her shattered window-panes up above.  The points of broken glass still seemed to slit the flesh of her hands within their bandages.

She shrank back and walked to the end of the transverse hall.  Across the road was the cathedral.  The morning service was just over.  People were pouring out through the temporary side doors and the temporary front doors so placidly, so contentedly!  Some were evidently strangers; as they reached the outside they turned and studied the cathedral curiously as those who had never before seen it.  Others turned and looked at it familiarly, with pride in its unfolding form.  Some stopped and looked down at the young grass, stroking it with the toes of their fine shoes; they were saying how fresh and green it was.  Some looked up at the sky; they were saying how blue it was.  Some looked at one another keenly; they were discussing some agreeable matter, being happy to get back to it now after the service.  Not one of them looked across at the hospital.  Not a soul of them seemed to be even aware of its existence.  Not a soul of them!

Particularly her eyes became riveted upon two middle-aged ladies in black who came out through a side door of the cathedral—­slow-paced women, bereft, full of pity.  As they crossed the yard, a gray squirrel came jumping along in front of them on its way to the park.  One stooped and coaxed it and tried to pet it:  it became a vital matter with both of them to pour out upon the little creature which had no need of it their pent-up, ungratified affection.  With not a glance to the window where she stood, with her mortal need of them, her need of all mothers, of everybody—­her mortal need of everybody!  Why were they not there at his bedside?  Why had they not heard?  Why had not all of them heard?  Why had anything else been talked of that day?  Why were they not all massed around the hospital doors, tearful with their sympathies?  How could they hold services in the cathedral—­the usual services?  Why was it not crowded to the doors with the clergy of all faiths and the laymen of every land, lifting one outcry against such destruction?  Why did they not stop building temples to God, to the God of life, to the God who gave little children, until they had stopped the massacre of children, His children in the streets!