"I ran up to her and caught her by the arm. 'Your name's not Louise,' I
said, looking straight at her. It was an impertinent interference, but I
felt excited, and acted on impulse.
"'No,' she replied, very quietly; 'but it's the name of a very dear
school friend of mine. I've got the clue to-night that I've been waiting
two years to get. Good-night, nurse, thanks for fetching me.'
"She rose and went out, and I listened to her footsteps going down the
stairs, and then drew up the blind and let in the dawn.
"I've never told that incident to any one until this evening," my nurse
concluded, as she took the empty port wine glass out of my hand, and
stirred the fire. "A nurse wouldn't get many engagements if she had the
reputation for making blunders of that sort."
Another story that she told me showed married life more lovelit, but
then, as she added, with that cynical twinkle which glinted so oddly from
her gentle, demure eyes, this couple had only very recently been wed--had,
in fact, only just returned from their honeymoon.
They had been travelling on the Continent, and there had both contracted
typhoid fever, which showed itself immediately on their home-coming.
"I was called in to them on the very day of their arrival," she said;
"the husband was the first to take to his bed, and the wife followed suit
twelve hours afterwards.
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