Some time later Jane Brown stood in the doorway of the operating-room and gave it a farewell look.  Its white floor and walls were spotless.  Shining rows of instruments on clean towels were ready to put away in the cabinets.  The sterilisers glowed in warm rectangles of gleaming copper.  Over all brooded the peace of order, the quiet of the night.

Outside the operating-room door she drew a long breath, and faced the night watchman.  She had left something in Twenty-two.  Would she go and get it?

“It’s very late,” said Jane Brown.  “And it isn’t allowed, I’m sure.”

However, what was one more rule to her who had defied them all?  A spirit of recklessness seized her.  After all, why not?  She would never see him again.  Like the operating-room, she would stand in the doorway and say a mute little farewell.

Twenty-two’s door was wide open, and he was standing in the centre of the room, looking out.  He had heard her long before she came in sight, for he, too, had learned the hospital habit of classifying footsteps.

He was horribly excited.  He had never been so nervous before.  He had made up a small speech, a sort of beginning, but he forgot it the moment he heard her, and she surprised him in the midst of trying, agonisingly, to remember it.

There was a sort of dreadful calm, however, about Jane Brown.

“The watchman says I have left something here.”

It was clear to him at once that he meant nothing to her.  It was in her voice.

“You did,” he said.  And tried to smile.

“Then—­if I may have it——­”

“I wish to heaven you could have it,” he said, very rapidly.  “I don’t want it.  It’s darned miserable.”

“It’s—­what?”

“It’s an ache,” he went on, still rather incoherent.  “A pain.  A misery.”  Then, seeing her beginning to put on a professional look:  “No, not that.  It’s a feeling.  Look here,” he said, rather more slowly, “do you mind coming in and closing the door?  There’s a man across who’s always listening.”

She went in, but she did not close the door.  She went slowly, looking rather pale.

“What I sent for you for is this,” said Twenty-two, “are you going away?  Because I’ve got to know.”

“I’m being sent away as soon as the quarantine is over.  It’s—­it’s perfectly right.  I expected it.  Things would soon go to pieces if the nurses took to—­took to doing what I did.”

Suddenly Twenty-two limped across the room and slammed the door shut, a proceeding immediately followed by an irritated ringing of bells at the night nurse’s desk.  Then he turned, his back against the door.

“Because I’m going when you do,” he said, in a terrible voice.  “I’m going when you go, and wherever you go.  I’ve stood all the waiting around for a glimpse of you that I’m going to stand.”  He glared at her.  “For weeks,” he said, “I’ve sat here in this room and listened for you, and hated to go to sleep for fear you would pass and I wouldn’t be looking through that damned door.  And now I’ve reached the limit.”