The scene was very familiar, and it was an easy effort for his
imagination to place in the adjoining cots the patients with whom,
months before, he had fought the winning or losing battle of life.
While memory sometimes went back compassionately to those
sufferers, his thoughts dwelt chiefly upon the near future, with
its certainty of happiness--a happiness doubly appreciated because
his renewed experience in the old conditions of his life made the
home which awaited him all the sweeter from contrast. He could
scarcely believe that he was the same man who in places like this
had sought to forget the pain of bereavement and of denial of his
dearest wish--he who in the morning would telegraph Helen that the
wedding need not even be postponed, or any change made in their
plans.
The hours were passing almost unnoted, when a patient beyond the
circle of light feebly called for water. Almost mechanically
Hobart rose to get it, when a man wearing carpet slippers and an
old dressing-gown shuffled noiselessly into view.
"Captain Nichol!" gasped Martine, sinking back, faint and
trembling, in his chair.
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