“Your doctor is away, he will be back to-morrow—­soon,” the nurse corrected herself.  “Then perhaps you—­may go out.”

“But why am I here?  This is a hospital, and I am not ill.”

“No, not exactly ill,” and Mary Bell had her own very serious doubts about the condition of the young patient—­never had she seen a demented girl so perfectly sane.  “But it is best for you to await your own doctor’s orders,” she finished.

“My own doctor?  What is his name, please?”

“Dr. Ashton.  Do you remember him?”

“I have never heard the name before,” replied Dorothy, looking about her anxiously at the sanitary appointments of the white room.  “I suppose this is a sanitarium for nerves.”

“You have been here long enough to know that much,” said the nurse with a smile, “but you seem to have a new kind—­of nerves.”

“I have only been here a few hours, I should judge, but it did seem an eternity.  Are they not going to send for my friends?  They will be distracted.  I have been away from them for so long.”

Again that uncertain look came into the face of the nurse.  Surely if this girl had been demented she must now be very much better.  Her talk was entirely rational.

And Dorothy was thinking:  “Surely if they believe I am crazy they must be crazy themselves!  The sounds around here are enough to shake any one’s nerves.”

Some one was singing.  The shrill voice rent the air like some weird cry from a lost mind.  It made Dorothy shiver.

“You think I am—­demented,” she asked finally.  “But there is some great mistake.  I am Dorothy Dale of—­Dalton.  I was camping at Everglade—­and I have had a dreadful time of it since I fell, and was picked up by that old farmer.”

Dorothy’s eyes were full.  She had made up her mind, since her escape from the Hobbs house, that she must wait—­wait until those around her saw their mistake.  At any rate, it was something to be among intelligent people, if they were nurses and doctors, and as they plainly believed her to be an escaped patient she must wait until some one came to identify her.  But now it was very hard, and she was very, very lonely, and very nervous with those poor demented people singing, sighing, laughing and calling from all over the place.

“I am sorry Miss Bennet had to go away, before I saw you,” said the nurse, vaguely.  “It would have been better——­”

“Miss Bennet?”

“Yes, your regular nurse.”

“I never had a nurse since I had the measles,” said Dorothy, and she really felt inclined to laugh.  “Would you mind if I sat up at the window?  I feel perfectly strong now, and I want to remember what the blessed world is like.”

“Of course you may sit by the window,” replied Miss Bell, assisting Dorothy into a robe.  “And I don’t blame you for wanting to see out of doors.  Sometimes I hate being a nurse.”

“I should think you would.  It is enough to turn one’s own head.  Oh, I do wish some one who knows me would come!  My father and all my folks will be frantic.  Is there anything more dreadful than being lost in the Maine woods!”