Patricia had waited thirteen months for that telegram; and once her anxious eyes deciphered its exact meaning, she knew no feeling except relief. Her man was home again, out of it, not for a week’s exeat but for months, perhaps for good! They would give him leave. He would see Sunflowers. She would nurse him back to health....

She sent Fry into Arlsfield with telegrams to her father and the invalid; she packed her bag; she urged the children to behave themselves during her absence; she borrowed Tebbits’ trap, and caught the 3:45 from Henley with exactly one minute to spare. Neither in the trap, the train, nor the taxi which whirled her through unfamiliar streets to her destination, did she panic.

At the entrance to the hospital—a great barrack of a building, set foursquare round a gravel courtyard—difficulties began. An R. A. M. C. Sergeant, standing stiffly to attention, informed Patricia that visitors were allowed only between two and four p. m. She asked to see the Matron, and was conducted down a cold stone corridor to an unfriendly waiting-room. After ten minutes, appeared a forbidding woman of uncertain age, dressed in the Regulation Red Cross uniform, who said: “She knew of no patient named Jameson in the Officers’ Ward; but would make enquiries.”

Patricia waited another ten minutes. The Matron returned. She had discovered Peter: he was as well as could be expected: Mrs. Jameson could come to see him the following afternoon.

“But I want to see him at once,” insisted Patricia.

“I’m afraid we can’t allow that.” The Matron smiled a superior smile. “It’s against orders.”

“Then you must disobey orders.”

“My dear Mrs. Jameson ...” began the woman.

But at that, Patricia’s temper exploded.

“Don’t ‘dear Mrs. Jameson’ me,” she flashed out. “He may be your patient. But he’s my husband. And I’m going to see him.”

“The Registrar might let you. I can’t.”

“Then please go and fetch the Registrar.”

There appeared, after a further twenty minutes during which Patricia’s annoyance rose to fever-point, a pompous but kindly individual with drooping moustaches, who peered at her through gold pince-nez, and said:

“The Matron tells me you want to see your husband. We really oughtn’t to allow it, you know. Really, we oughtn’t. Of course, if he were in any danger, it would be a different thing.”

“It’s rather natural I should want to see him, isn’t it?”

“Entirely, my dear young lady, entirely. But we have to think of the other patients, you see. Still, as a great favour, and just for ten minutes....”

He led her up stone-staircases, down endless miles of corridors where blue-clad patients shuffled and limped on noiseless slippers, till they came to a white-painted doorway marked, “Officers Only”; up yet another staircase to a stone half-landing. Here a capped nurse met them.

“This is Mrs. Jameson,” said the Registrar. “I’ve promised her she may see her husband. But only for ten minutes, Sister. Only for ten minutes.”

“Is he very bad?” asked Patricia.

“He’s asleep, I think,” said the Sister.

The Registrar made his adieux; clattered off downstairs. The two women passed into the ward: a long bare room of ten beds whose occupants looked up incuriously at the accustomed swish of the Sister’s linen skirt, displaying scarcely more interest on sight of Patricia.

The last bed of all was screened.

“He’s in here,” whispered the Sister. She shifted one of the screens noiselessly; and Patricia tip-toed in.

For a moment, the joy of seeing him eclipsed judgment. Then it was no longer merely the loving woman, Peter’s wife, who looked down on him; but Patricia Baynet the doctor’s daughter, sickness-wise by inheritance!

He lay on his back, bandaged arm outside the coverlet. In the shadow cast by the screens, his unshaved face showed thin and fine-drawn. She hardly noticed these symptoms; she had expected and discounted them. She noticed something else—his breathing. It came spasmodically, in quick uneven jerks through half-opened lips. Twice, during the ten minutes she stood watching him, he seemed about to awaken; moaned in his sleep.... The Sister signalled to her that it was time to leave him. Very quietly, she withdrew; and they passed out of the ward again.

“Well,” asked the Sister, “what do you think of him?”

Patricia looked doubtfully at the unintelligent eyes under the white cap. “How long has he been here?” she asked.

“Two days, I think. I’ve only just come to this ward.”

“Could I see the doctor who’s attending him?”

“He’s left, I think. But the Orderly Officer’s in his room. I’ll take you to him if you like.”

They found the Orderly Officer, an ascetic-looking young man, seated at a large desk, telephone in front of him, fountain-pen in hand. He offered Patricia a seat, listened carefully to her questions.

“Yes,” said Captain Territt, “your husband’s been here two days. I saw him when he came in. He told me that a piece of shrapnel hit him on the helmet. Slight case of concussion, I expect. He’ll soon get over that. And he’s got a touch of bronchial catarrh. Exposure, you know.”

“When did you take his temperature last?”

“Five o’clock, I expect.” He turned to the nurse. “When was it, Sister?”

The girl hesitated. “I—I didn’t take it. He seemed so sound asleep.”

“Well, please go and do so at once.”

The girl hurried out of the room. “We’re frightfully understaffed, you know,” explained the doctor. Patricia looked at him, summed him up. She was half mad with anxiety; but she spoke without a trace of emotion. “May I use your telephone, doctor?” “Certainly.” She pulled the instrument towards her; called up her father’s number....

The nurse, returning white-faced, thermometer in hand, heard her say:—“Is that Jenkins speaking? ... This is Mrs. Jameson.... Then you must put me through to his consulting-room. ... Is that you, pater? ... Did you get my wire? ... I’m at the hospital now.... No, he’s very ill, and I want you to come down at once.... It’s pneumonia, I think.... In half-an-hour.... Thanks awfully, pater.”

She hung up the receiver; turned to Captain Territt. “It is pneumonia, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so. The temperature’s rather high.”

“How high?”

“A hundred and four point one, under the arm.” Doctor and Sister hurried out of the room....

She waited their return; waited miserably; visioned Peter fighting for breath as she had seen her brother Jack fighting for breath, years and years ago, in the night-nursery at Harley Street. And she, his wife, could do nothing; must sit there powerless. All the relief at knowing him saved from the firing-line, all the rosy expectations of his coming to Sunflowers, faded like silly dreams. Supposing they had only brought him home to die!

Heron Baynet, entering with the quiet unhurried step of the professional consultant, hardly recognized his daughter: her face was so drawn with agony—love-agony of which he had never dreamed her capable.

“Am I in time?” he asked, doubting the answer.

She rose, tottered towards him. “I don’t know, pater, I don’t know anything....” He caught the panic in her voice, hardened to it. “Don’t be hysterical, Pat. It does you no good: and it may harm Peter. Now, tell me exactly what has happened, and why you telephoned.”

At the sound of his voice, nerve came back to her; and she told him of her suspicions, of their confirmation.

“He was asleep, you say?” asked Heron Baynet.

“Yes.”

“On his back, or propped up?”

“On his back.”

“Oh, you women!” Heron Baynet smiled at his daughter. “You know so much, and yet you know so little. If it had been as bad as you’ve imagined for the last half-hour, do you think he could have slept? Why, Pat, he’d have been bolt upright, breathing fifty to the minute....”

She said, very quietly: “But supposing I hadn’t insisted on seeing him. Supposing that idiot of a sister....”

A step sounded outside. Captain Territt came in; stiffened at sight of the civilian; was introduced; wilted at mention of the civilian’s name; answered the technical questions with the deference due to a consultant. Yes, the patient had bronchial pneumonia. At least, in Doctor Territt’s opinion, it was bronchial pneumonia. Perhaps Doctor Baynet would prefer to form his own opinion....

The two members of the closest Labour Union in England passed out together, leaving Patricia again alone.

Supposing they had only brought Peter back to die! ...