Then he fell to conversation with the Senior Medical, who was rather
worried about a case listed on the books as Augustus Baird,
coloured.

Twenty-two did not sleep very well that night. He needed exercise,
he felt. But there was something else. Miss Brown had been just a
shade too ready to accept his explanation about Mabel, he felt, so
ready that he feared she had been more polite than sincere. Probably
she still believed there was a Mabel. Not that it mattered, except
that he hated to make a fool of himself. He roused once in the night
and was quite sure he heard her voice down the corridor. He knew
this must be wrong, because they would not make her work all day and
all night, too.

But, as it happened, it _was_ Jane Brown. The hospital provided
plenty of sleeping time, but now and then there was a slip-up and
somebody paid. There had been a night operation, following on a busy
day, and the operating-room nurses needed help. Out of a sound sleep
the night Assistant had summoned Jane Brown to clean instruments.

At five o'clock that morning she was still sitting on a stool beside
a glass table, polishing instruments which made her shiver. All
around were things that were spattered with blood. But she looked
anything but fluttery. She was a very grim and determined young
person just then, and professional beyond belief. The other things,
like washing window-sills and cutting toe-nails, had had no
significance. But here she was at last on the edge of mercy. Some
one who might have died had lived that night because of this room,
and these instruments, and willing hands.