“See, they look empty, quite—–­quite empty.”

“Just nerves.”  And he patted the hand in his reassuringly; he tried his best to pat it in the old, big-brother way.  “You’ve had an awfully trying day—­most women would be in their rooms having hysteria or doldrums.”

Still she did not hear.  Her eyes were traveling from cot to crib and on to cot again, as they had once before that night.  “Every single bed looks empty,” she repeated.  “The clothes tumbled as if the children had slipped quietly out from under them.”  She shivered ever so slightly.  “Perhaps they have found out they are not wanted any longer and have run away.”

“Come, come,” the House Surgeon spoke in a gruff whisper.  “I believe you’re getting feverish.”  And mechanically his ringers closed over her pulse.  Then he pulled her to her feet.  “Go over to those beds this minute and see for yourself that every child is there, safe and sound asleep.”

But she held back, laughing nervously.  “No, no; we mustn’t spoil the magic of the ring.”  Her voice trailed off into a dreamy, wistful monotone.  “Who knows—­Cinderella’s godmother came to her when it was only a matter of ragged clothes and a party; the need here was far greater.  Who knows?” She caught her breath with a sudden in-drawn cry.  “Why, to-night is May Eve!”

“Why, of course it is!” agreed the House Surgeon, as if he had known it from the beginning.

“And who knows but the faeries may have come and stolen them all away?”

Now the House Surgeon was old in understanding, although he was young in years; and he knew it was wiser sometimes to give in to the whims of a tired, overwrought brain.  He knew without being told—­for Margaret MacLean would never have told—­how tired and hopelessly heart-sick and mind-sick she was to-night.  What he did not know, however, was how pitifully lonely and starved her life had always been; and that this was the hour for the full conscious reckoning of it.

She had often said, whimsically, “Those who are born with wooden instead of golden spoons in their mouths had better learn very young to keep them well scoured, or they’ll find them getting so rough and splintered that they can’t possibly eat with them.”  She had followed her own advice bravely, and kept happy; but now even the wooden spoon had been taken from her.

The House Surgeon lifted her up and put her gently into the rocker, while he sat down on the corner of the table, neighbor to the green Devonshire bowl.

Perhaps Margaret MacLean was not to find bitterness, after all; perhaps it would be his glad good fortune to keep it from her.  It was surprising the way he felt his misery dwindling, and instantly he pulled up his courage—­another hole.

“I think you said ‘faeries,’” he suggested, seriously.  “Why not faeries?”

She nodded in equal seriousness.  “Why not?  They always come May Eve to the lonely of heart; and even a hospital might have faeries once in a generation.  Only—­only why couldn’t they have taken me with the children?  It wasn’t exactly fair to leave me behind, was it?”