"And you are quite, quite certain that none of the awful shells will come into Ladysmith to-night?"
"Quite certain; we have some hours of peace and safety."
Kitty looked fragile and lovely when Katherine had dressed her. She herself also put on a neat and becoming dress, but she took care that Kitty's beauty should be the chief focus of attraction. She then took the girl's hand and led her downstairs. The mystery about the sick English girl had come almost to fever height amongst the officers and nurses, who principally inhabited the hotel. Many people glanced now at Katherine, whose face was quite familiar, and at Kitty, whose face was unknown, as they went slowly by. Major Strause suddenly burst out of the smoking-room.
"I say!" he exclaimed. "Miss Hepworth, you here!"
He pretended that he had not until now known of Kitty's arrival in Ladysmith.
She gave him her hand indifferently, raised her pretty eyes to his face, and then dropped them.
"I am going to Gavon," she said. "He is wounded, and I must go to him."
"Only a flesh wound--nothing of any importance. He must lie up for a day or two.--Shall I go across to the hospital with you, Miss Hunt?"
"No, thank you," replied Katherine; "Kitty and I can manage nicely alone.--Now, Kitty," she said, as the girls went down the street, "you must remember that Sister Mollie knows nothing of your arrival here. She will be very much astonished when you walk into the ward, and perhaps a little hurt with you for keeping things dark from her."
"I shall like to see her," replied Kitty; "and if she is nursing Gavon, I of course will help her. It is my place to nurse him, is it not, Katherine?"
"I should say yes. I am glad you feel it in that way."
Katherine could not help a note of sarcasm coming into her voice.
She and Kitty entered the hospital. A moment later they found themselves in the long ward. Kitty's face turned white. Had she thought of herself, she might have fainted; but just then her eyes were arrested by seeing a girl bending over a sick man, holding a stimulant to his lips, and speaking cheering words. The girl was her sister; the man she was bending over was Captain Keith.
With a cry--a curious mingling of delight, and suffering, and absolute self-forgetfulness--Kitty, in her white dress and blue sash, looking something like a fashionable London girl and also something like an angel, ran down the long ward and approached the side of the sick man.