It
wouldn't do to leave her without friends, sick and weak, this cold
night. She had, of course, gone home to her room. He could easily find
her. He wouldn't mind going out, though he had intended doing other
things that evening; but he had undertaken this job and he must see it
through. Then there was that telegram from Mother Marshall! And her
letter on the way! Too bad! Of course he must make Bonnie go back to the
hospital. He would have no trouble in coaxing her back when she knew how
she had distressed them all.
"I'll go right down to her old place and see if she's there," he told
the nurse. "She has probably gone back to her room. Certainly I will
insist that she return to the hospital to-night."
As he hung up the receiver Pat touched his elbow and pointed to a
messenger-boy waiting for him with a note.
It was Gila's violet-scented missive over which she had wept those angry
tears. He signed for the letter with a frown. Somehow the perfume
annoyed him. He put the thing in his pocket, having no patience to read
it at once, and went hurriedly down the hall.
As he passed the office Courtland found a letter in his box, noting with
a sort of comfort that it bore a Western postmark. As he waited for his
trolley at the corner, he reflected how strange it was that this young
woman, whom he had never seen nor heard of before, should suddenly be
flung thus upon his horizon and seem, in a measure, his responsibility.
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