She chose to make known her real position, to correct the false impression at a time when all the nurses of the house should be together.  This would be at supper-time.  Since her return from Medford, Lloyd had shut herself away from the other inmates of the house, and had taken her meals in her room.  With the exception of Miss Douglass and the superintendent nurse no one had seen her.  She had passed her time lying at full length upon her couch, her hands clasped behind her head, or pacing the floor, or gazing listlessly out of her windows, while her thoughts raced at a gallop through her mind.

Now, however, she bestirred herself.  She had arrived at her final decision early in the afternoon of the third day after her return, and at once she resolved that she would endure the ordeal that very evening.

She passed the intervening time, singularly enough, in very carefully setting her room to rights, adjusting and readjusting the few ornaments on the mantel-shelf and walls, winding the clock that struck ship’s bells instead of the hours, and minutely sorting the letters and papers in her desk.  It was the same as if she were going upon a long journey or were preparing for a great sickness.  Toward four o’clock Miss Douglass, looking in to ask how she did, found her before her mirror carefully combing and arranging her great bands and braids of dark-red hair.  The fever nurse declared that she was immensely improved in appearance, and asked at once if she was not feeling better.

“Yes,” answered Lloyd, “very much better,” adding:  “I shall be down to supper to-night.”

For some reason that she could not explain Lloyd took unusual pains with her toilet, debating long over each detail of dress and ornament.  At length, toward five o’clock, she was ready, and sat down by her window, a book in her lap, to await the announcement of supper as the condemned await the summons to execution.

Her plan was to delay her appearance in the dining-room until she was sure that everybody was present; then she would go down, and, standing there before them all, say what she had to say, state the few bald facts of the case, without excuse or palliation, and leave them to draw the one inevitable conclusion.

But this final hour of waiting was a long agony for Lloyd.  Her moods changed with every moment; the action she contemplated presented itself to her mind in a multitude of varying lights.  At one time she quivered with the apprehension of it, as though at the slow approach of hot irons.  At another she could see no reason for being greatly concerned over the matter.  Did the whole affair amount to so much, after all?  Her companions would, of their own accord, make excuses for her.  Risking one’s life in the case of a virulent, contagious disease was no small matter.  No one could be blamed for leaving such a case.  At one moment Lloyd’s idea of public confession seemed to her little less than sublime; at another, almost ridiculous.  But she remembered the case of Harriet Freeze, who had been unable to resist the quiet, unexpressed force of opinion of her fellow-workers.  It would be strange if Lloyd should find herself driven from the very house she had built.