“But Lloyd, you mustn’t take it so to heart.  You couldn’t have got him through.  No one could at that time.  He was probably dying when you were sent for.  We must all lose a case now and then.”

“Died?” repeated Lloyd; “Dr. Pitts wired that Mr. Ferriss died?”

“Yes; it was to prevent my coming out there uselessly.  He must have sent the wire quite an hour before you left.  It was very thoughtful of him.”

“He’s dead,” said Lloyd in a low, expressionless voice, looking vacantly about the room.  “Mr. Ferriss is dead.”  Then suddenly she put a fist to either temple, horror-struck and for the moment shaken with hysteria from head to foot, her eyes widening with an expression almost of terror.  “Dead!” she cried.  “Oh, it’s horrible!  Why didn’t I—­why couldn’t I—­”

“I know just how you feel,” answered Miss Douglass soothingly.  “I am that way myself sometimes.  It’s not professional, I know, but when you have been successful in two or three bad cases you think you can always win; and then when you lose the next case you believe that somehow it must have been your fault—­that if you had been a little more careful at just that moment, or done a little different in that particular point, you might have saved your patient.  But you, of all people, ought not to feel like that.  If you could not have saved your case nobody could.”

“It was just because I had the case that it was lost.”

“Nonsense, Lloyd; don’t talk like that.  You’ve not had enough sleep; your nerves have been over-strained.  You’re worn out and a little hysterical and morbid.  Now lie down and keep quiet, and I’ll bring you your supper.  You need a good night’s sleep and bromide of potassium.”

When she had gone Lloyd rose to her feet and drew her hand wearily across her eyes.  The situation adjusted itself in her mind.  After the first recoil of horror at Ferriss’s death she was able to see the false position in which she stood.  She had been so certain already that Ferriss would die, leaving him as she did at so critical a moment, that now the sharpness of Miss Douglass’s news was blunted a little.  She had only been unprepared for the suddenness of the shock.  But now she understood clearly how Miss Douglass had been deceived by circumstances.  The fever nurse had heard of Ferriss’s death early in the afternoon, and supposed, of course, that Lloyd had left the case after, and not before, it had occurred.  This was the story the other nurses would believe.  Instantly, in the flood of grief and remorse and humiliation that had overwhelmed her, Lloyd caught at this straw of hope.  Only Dr. Pitts and Bennett knew the real facts.  Bennett, of course, would not speak, and Lloyd knew that the physician would understand the cruelty and injustice of her situation, and because of that would also keep silence.  To make sure of this she could write him a letter, or, better still, see him personally.  It would be hard to tell him the truth.  But that was nothing when compared with the world’s denunciation of her.