CHAPTER XXIII

DOROTHY’S ESCAPE

When Miss Bell returned to Dorothy’s room in the sanitarium, after her talk over the telephone, Dorothy saw that her anxiety had reached a state of prostration.  She seemed convinced that she had taken to the institution the wrong girl, and the dread of disgrace, especially as she was a new nurse in the house, seemed to weigh very heavily upon her.  She would come up and look into Dorothy’s face, examine the pupils of her eyes, and then go away sighing.

“Are you sorry I am not demented?” asked Dorothy, with as much in her voice as she could command.  “Just think what a good time you will have, when we get back to camp.”

“I will run away,” was the only reply the new nurse would make.

Night came, and the nurse lay down to rest.  Dorothy pretended to do the same thing, but she had resolved to get out of that sanitarium, without bringing disgrace on this young woman.  But the attempt would be fraught with danger.  If she were caught, not only would she be returned to the sanitarium, but she knew there was another ward——­

Dorothy did not permit herself to think of this.  “I am going to get away before daylight,” she said.  “Then, when the mother of the missing girl comes and I have gotten away, they will not know whether it was her daughter, or me.”

But to get away would mean trouble for the nurse also.  She would be blamed for leaving Dorothy unguarded!

“The other attendant comes in at five in the morning,” decided Dorothy, “then I must—­go!”

It was an awful thought!  She could hear the guards pacing up and down the corridors, she had seen the high fence with its iron palings, and as to gates—­there were guards all about them.

“The nurse’s clothes!” thought Dorothy.  “If I could get into Miss Bell’s things!  They are here—­in her suit-case.  Then I might walk out!  But I would faint if they spoke to me?  No, I would not, I must have courage!  I must be brave!  In getting out I may save my dear folks more anxiety, and I can save this poor little woman!”

She looked kindly down at the sleeping nurse.  The face, even in sleep, was troubled, and the young woman tossed uneasily.

Every hour the clock struck in the outside hall, but Dorothy heard it in her prison room.  Her mind was first forming this plan, and then that, until she felt, if she did not get some sleep, she would never be able to carry out any plan at all.  Finally, as the steps and voices in the hall grew fainter, Dorothy did fall asleep, but only to wake with a start just as the clock struck five.

A tap sounded at the door.  Miss Bell was dressed and waiting.  The nurses were going down to breakfast, and as she left Dorothy, with a pleasant word, the other attendant stepped in, picked up a novel, and without noticing Dorothy, any more than if she had been wooden, she sank lazily down in a chair, and started to read.