very sick ones. Two or three neurasthenics like yourself and a
convalescent typhoid and a D.T. in a private room. If it wasn't
that Mary O'Shaughnessy----"

But at the word "neurasthenics" Jane had put down the toaster, and
by the time the unconscious young man had reached the O'Shaughnessy
she was going out the door with her chin up. He called after her,
and finding she did not turn he followed her, shouting apologies at
her back until she went into her room. And as hospital doors don't
lock from the inside she pushed the washstand against the knob and
went to bed to keep warm.

He stood outside and apologised again, and later he brought a tray
of bread and butter and a pot of the tea, which had been boiling for
two hours by that time, and put it outside the door on the floor.
But Jane refused to get it, and finished her breakfast from a jar of
candied ginger that some one had sent her, and read "Lorna Doone."

Now and then a sound of terrific hammering would follow the
steampipes and Jane would smile wickedly. By noon she had finished
the ginger and was wondering what the person about whom she and the
family had disagreed would think when he heard the way she was being
treated. And by one o'clock she had cried her eyes entirely shut and
had pushed the washstand back from the door.


II

Now a hospital full of nurses and doctors with a bell to summon food
and attention is one thing. A hospital without nurses and doctors,