I. A. R. Wylie

“ Again there was a moment's silence before she answered, and this time the silence was heavy with an unspoken sadness.
“I do not think so,” she said at last, very slowly. “All my friends and relations are far away. Most of them are dead.”
He bit his lip. He felt that he had jarred roughly upon a new wound, and his heart went out to her. After all, loneliness is well enough for man, but for a woman it is something tragic. ”

“ It is better to be alone.
Colonel Mowbray lay very still. Almost unconsciously he went on thinking about his neighbor, wondering if she was still in pain or if she slept. The sunlight faded. Dusk crept over the silent ward, and presently he fell into a slight doze. How long it lasted he did not know. When he awoke it was night.
There was a faint yellow reflection on the ceiling of the next cubicle and someone was speaking.
“Nurse—I don't want to bother—am I very impatient? I try not to be. But shall I never be able to go to sleep again?” ”

“ It had revealed to him a truth—that he had despised the highest consolation which life has to offer—but it had also come too late.
“A decent man does not try to bind a girl to him who is young enough, probably, to be his child,” he argued. “It would be a mean, unfair thing. I care for her too much for that.”
So he put love definitely out of his life and prepared to go back to his loneliness. ”

“ Then he whispered:
“Who are they—I mean the people on either side?”
“On your left there is a poor third-class passenger and on your right a lady. You see, it is rather a mixed ward, but we couldn't help it. There were so many injured and we had not much room. Later on we shall be able to move you.”
“I should hope so!” he muttered.
He lay still while she finished the bandage.
From somewhere quite close to him, as it seemed, he heard a low, long drawn sigh. It sounded so sad and so patient that it stirred him uncomfortably, and he looked at his nurse with his bushy eyebrows raised. ”

“ At any rate, the doctor had told him he might be moved if he wished it, and he had not made the slightest effort to make use of the permission. He lay stubbornly in bed and talked with his “friend,” as he called her, on the other side of the partition. His left-hand neighbor had been taken elsewhere, so they disturbed no one. They had not seen each other. It would not have been possible, even if they had wished it, since he lay in the men's side of the ward and she in the women's, but, indeed, they seemed to have no curiosity about each other. ”

“ But I will go away. You will forget me. Another and younger man, more fit to be your comrade—”
“Hush! Hush!” she interrupted him again. “Don't you understand? Will you never understand? You were mistaken from the beginning, though I did not know it. I, too, let things drift. You were just my friend, my dear unseen neighbor. ”

“ She made no answer to this and a silence fell between them. Colonel Mowbray wondered if she had fallen asleep. Otherwise he would have liked to continue the conversation.
Presently he ventured to ask:
“Will you be laid up in this rabbit-hutch long?”
“I don't know. Some weeks, I am afraid. You see, my back was injured and that always takes time. But I have nothing to complain about. Other poor people have had much more to bear.” ”

“ An absolute unbroken silence fell upon the ward. Both men, unknown to each other, lay and listened. But there was no movement in the right-hand cubicle, and presently the Colonel sank into an uneasy sleep.
II
The doctor rubbed his hands cheerfully.
“Six or seven weeks, my dear sir,” he said, “and you'll be on your feet, I've no doubt. What are a few weeks to a young man at your time of life? You mustn't grumble.”
Colonel Mowbray was not thinking of grumbling. ”

“ Hold your tongue and don't make a noise like a puppy with its tail trodden on. You are disturbing the lady—”
“Wot laidy?”
“There's a young lady next door in great pain and she can't get to sleep. I suppose you can oblige a lady, can't you?” ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1959, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 64 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”