Al’mah nodded.  “So I laugh a good deal, and try to be cheerful, and it does more good than being too sympathetic.  Sympathy gets to be mere snivelling very often.  I’ve smiled and laughed a great deal out here; and they say it’s useful.  The surgeons say it, and the men say it too sometimes.”

“Are you known as Nurse Grattan?” Jasmine asked with sudden remembrance.

“Yes, Grattan was my mother’s name.  I am Nurse Grattan here.”

“So many have whispered good things of you.  A Scottish Rifleman said to me a week ago, ‘Ech, she’s aye see cheery!’ What a wonderful thing it is to make a whole army laugh.  Coming up here three officers spoke of you, and told of humorous things you had said.  It’s all quite honest, too.  It’s a reputation made out of new cloth.  No one knows who you are?”

Al’mah flushed.  “I don’t know quite who I am myself.  I think sometimes I’m the world’s foundling.”

Suddenly a cloud passed over her face again, and her strong whimsical features became drawn.

“I seem almost to lose my identity at times; and then it is I try most to laugh and be cheerful.  If I didn’t perhaps I should lose my identity altogether.  Do you ever feel that?”

“No; I often wish I could.”

Al’mah regarded her steadfastly.  “Why did you come here?” she asked.  “You had the world at your feet; and there was plenty to do in London.  Was it for the same reason that brought me here?  Was it something you wanted to forget there, some one you wanted to help here?”

Jasmine saw the hovering passion in the eyes fixed on her, and wondered what this woman had to say which could be of any import to herself; yet she felt there was something drawing nearer which would make her shrink.

“No,” Jasmine answered, “I did not come to forget, but to try and remember that one belongs to the world, to the work of the world, to the whole people, and not to one of the people; not to one man, or to one family, or to one’s self.  That’s all.”

Al’mah’s face was now very haggard, but her eyes were burning.  “I do not believe you,” she said straightly.  “You are one of those that have had a phantasy.  I had one first fifteen years ago, and it passed, yet it pursued me till yesterday—­till yesterday evening.  Now it’s gone; that phantasy is gone forever.  Come and see what it was.”

She pointed to the door of another room.

There was something strangely compelling in her tone, in her movements.  Jasmine followed her, fascinated by the situation, by the look in the woman’s face.  The door opened upon darkness, but Jasmine stepped inside, with Almah’s fingers clutching her sleeve.  For a moment nothing was visible; then, Jasmine saw, dimly, a coffin on two chairs.

“That was the first man I ever loved—­my husband,” Al’mah said quietly, pointing at the coffin.  “There was another, but you took him from me—­you and others.”