What is gallantry on a women’s ward? He smiled, bowed. Some of the women smiled back. The woman with the red hair went on with her brushing.

There was no chair by Emily’s bed so he stood at its side looking down at her. She was sleeping, lying on her back, deeply absent. They would have given her something, of course. He hoped they had. A draught, a calmative. Grains of opium. Her left eye was covered with a dressing held in place by a bandage that wound diagonally around her head. She looked neither better nor worse than he had imagined her. She looked . . . different, as if the shock of what had taken place the previous day was in her still. As though, stretched out on the table under the glass roof (someone stepping forward, apologetically, purposefully, to keep her head from moving), she had clenched around her fear and not yet let go.

He bent to her. He wanted to whisper her name but was afraid of waking her to pain. He wanted to touch her shoulder or her hand but was aware he was still being watched. So he stood there, a messenger from the outer world who had, apparently, forgotten his message. He looked round. The red-haired woman was speaking to him. He thought she said “peaceful,” or “piece-meal.” He thanked her (for what?) and was preparing to leave when Rizzo swept aside the curtain and entered the ward with a cry of “Good morning, ladies!” He smiled at Lacroix, came to stand next to him.

“Well, you have seen for yourself,” he said.

“Seen?”

“Miss Frend.”

“I have. Yes.”

The procedure, explained Rizzo, speaking in a clear though confidential voice close to Lacroix’s right ear, had been without any alarming incident. True, it had lasted somewhat longer than he had hoped—longer, certainly, than Miss Frend would have hoped. But at the end she had been able to stand and come down the ward with no assistance but his own arm. The dressing had been changed this morning. The eye looked as he would wish it to. There was some fever in the night but that had passed off. He was, in conclusion, very pleased.

“This is excellent news,” said Lacroix. He felt slightly nauseous. He had drunk a lot of brandy the night before and going up the stairs to his room had tripped on the top step, gone down on the boards like one struck. A servant, a girl with a club foot, had seen him and grinned. He thought she might have said something saucy to him.

“I am glad she is sleeping,” he said.

“Yes,” said Rizzo. “Yes. We will let her sleep. Then a little nourishment. Then more sleep. Come back this afternoon. It may be she will be ready for a short conversation.”

“You will tell her I was here?”

“I will.”

“And that I am coming back?”

“Also that.”