''Listen to me,'' I said quietly. ''I must get out of here, quick as I can. I have people in London, with money. I''ve a mother. You''ve been here so long, you must know of a way. What is it? I''ll pay you fork, I swear.''
She looked at me, and then drew back. ''I hope,'' she said, in an ordinary tone, ''I hope you don''t suppose that I was the kind of girl brought up to speak in whispers?''
Nurse Bacon looked round and stared.
''You, Maud,'' she said. ''What are you doing now?''
''Whispering,'' said Betty, in her gruff voice.
''Whispering? I''ll whisper her, all right! Get back to your bed and leave Miss Wilson alone. Can''t I turn my back a minute without you start up trying to tamper with the ladies?''
I supposed she guessed I had been trying to escape. I went back to my bed. She stood at the door with the other nurse, and said something to her in a murmur. The other nurse wrinkled her nose. Then they looked me over in the same cool, nasty way that I had seen other nurses look at me, before.
I was still too ignorant then, of course, to know what the nasty look meant. God help me, though!—for I was to find out, soon enough.
┆思┆兔┆在┆線┆閱┆讀┆
Chapter Fifteen
Until then, however, I didn''t trouble myself to wonder; for I still supposed I should get out. Even when a week went by, and then another, I supposed it. I only understood at last that I must give up my idea that Dr Christie would be the man to release me— for if he believed that I was mad when I went in, then everything I said as time went on only seemed to serve to make him think me madder. Worse than that, he still held firm to his idea that I should be cured, and know myself again, if I might only be made to write. ''You have been put too much to literary work,'' he said on one of his visits, ''and that is the cause of your complaint. But sometimes we doctors must work by paradoxical methods. I mean to put you to literary work again, to restore you. Look here.'' He had brought me something, wrapped in paper. It was a slate and chalk. ''You shall sit with this blank slate before you,'' he said, ''and before this day is done, you shall have written me out—neatly, mind!—your name. Your true name, I mean. Tomorrow you shall write me the start of