Grace's muscle and resolution impeded
the attempt no more; slowly, gradually, he got both knees upon the
window-sill. But the delay was everything. In came a professional nurse.
She flung her arms round Walter's waist and just hung back with all her
weight. As she was heavy, though not corpulent, his more active strength
became quite valueless; weight and position defeated him hopelessly; and
at last he sank exhausted into the nurse's arms, and she and Grace
carried him to bed like a child.
Of course, when it was all over, half a dozen people came to the rescue.
The woman told what had happened, the doctor administered a soothing
draught, the patient became very quiet, then perspired a little, then
went to sleep, and the cheerful doctor declared that he would be all the
better for what he called this little outbreak. But Grace sat there
quivering for hours, and Colonel Clifford installed two new nurses that
very evening. They were pensioners of his--soldiers who had been
invalided from wounds, but had long recovered, and were neither of them
much above forty.
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