On the first Trustee Day following her complete recovery she appeared,
at her own request, before the meeting of the board. In a small,
frightened voice she asked them to please send her away to school. She
wanted to learn enough to come back to Saint Margaret's and be a nurse.

The trustees consented. Having assumed the responsibility of her
well-being for over fifteen years, they could not very easily shirk it
now. Furthermore, was it not a praise-worthy tribute to Saint
Margaret's as a charitable institution, and to themselves as trustees,
that this child whom they had sheltered and helped to cure should
choose this way of showing her gratitude? Verily, the board pruned and
plumed itself well that day.

All this Margaret MacLean lived over again as she climbed the stairs to
Ward C on the 30th of April, her heart glowing warm with the memory of
this man who had first understood; who had freed her mind from the
abnormality of her body and the stigma of her heritage; who had made it
possible for her to live wholesomely and deeply; and who had set her
feet upon a joyous mission. For the thousandth time she blessed that
memory.

It had been no disloyalty on her part that she had closed her lips and
said nothing when the House Surgeon had questioned her about her
fancy-making. She could never get away from the feeling that some of
the sweetness and sacredness might be lost with the telling of the
memory. One is so apt to cheapen a thing when one tries hastily to put
it into words, and ever afterward it is never quite the same.

On the second floor she stopped; and by chance she looked over, between
spiral banisters, to the patch of hallway below. It just happened that