“See here,” said the House Surgeon, bluntly, “that’s the second disagreeable thing you’ve said to-day.  I don’t think it’s quite square.  Do you?”

“No!” Her lips quivered; her hands reached out toward his impulsively.  “I don’t know why I keep saying things I know are not true.  I’m perfectly—­unforgivably horrid.”

As impulsively he took both hands, turned them palm uppermost, and kissed them.

[Illustration:  Impulsively he took both hands, turned them palm uppermost, and kissed them.]

She snatched them away; the crimson in her cheeks deepened.  “Don’t, please.  Your pity only makes it harder.  Oh, I don’t know what has happened—­here—­” And she struck her breast fiercely.  “If—­if they send the children away I shall never believe in anything again; the part of me that has believed and trusted and been glad will stop—­it will break all to pieces.”  With a hard, dry sob she left him, running up the remaining stairs to Ward C. She did not see his arms reach hungrily after her or the great longing in his face.

The House Surgeon turned and went downstairs again.

In the lower corridor he ran across the President, who was looking for him.  With much courtesy and circumlocution he was told the thing he had been waiting to hear:  the board, likewise, had discovered that Saint Margaret’s had suddenly grown too small to hold both the Senior Surgeon and himself.  Strangely enough, this troubled him little; there are times in a man’s life when even the most momentous of happenings shrink into nothing beside the simple process of telling the girl he loves that he loves her.

The President was somewhat startled by the House Surgeon’s commonplace acceptance of the board’s decision; and he returned to the board-room distinctly puzzled.

Meanwhile Margaret MacLean, having waited outside of Ward C for her cheeks to cool and her eyes to dry, opened the door and went in.

Ward C had been fed by the assistant nurse and put to bed; that is, all who could limp or wheel themselves about the room were back in their cribs, and the others were no longer braced or bolstered up.  As she had expected, gloom canopied every crib and cot; beneath, eight small figures, covered to their noses, shook with held-back sobs or wailed softly.  According to the custom that had unwittingly established itself, Ward C was crying itself to sleep.  Not that it knew what it was crying about, it being merely a matter of atmosphere and unstrung nerves; but that is cause enough to turn the mind of a sick child all awry, twisting out happiness and twisting in peevish, fretful feelings.