Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/298

"He must sleep after the examination. Better go."

Campton turned and saw Mr. Brant waiting. A bell rang twelve. The two, in silence, walked down the stairs, crossed the court (averting their eyes from the stretchers) and went to the hotel to get something to eat.

Midnight came. It passed. No one in the hurried confused world of the hospital had heard of the possibility of the surgeon's returning. When Campton mentioned it to the nurse she smiled her tired smile, and said: "He could have done nothing."

Done nothing! How could she know? How could any one, but the surgeon himself? Would he have promised if he had not thought there was some chance? Campton, stretched out on a blanket and his rolled-up coat, lay through the long restless hours staring at the moonlit sky framed by the window of the corridor. Great clouds swept over that cold indifferent vault: they seemed like the smoke from the guns which had not once ceased through the night. At last he got up, turned his back on the window, and lay down again facing the stairs. The moonlight unrolled a white strip along the stone floor. A church-bell rang one . . . two . . . there were noises and movements below. Campton raised himself, his heart beating all over his body. Steps came echoing up.

"Careful!" some one called. A stretcher rounded the