For a moment there were other duties to be attended to, a clearance and cleansing.

The Sister emptied the basins out of the window, whilst the lady-hospitaller wiped the shaking floor with a sponge.

Next, things had to be set in order; and then came a fresh anxiety, for the fourth patient, a slender girl whose face was entirely covered by a black fichu, and who had not yet moved, was saying that she felt hungry.
With quiet devotion Madame de Jonquiere immediately tendered her services.

"Don't you trouble, Sister," she said, "I will cut her bread into little bits for her." Marie, with the need she felt of diverting her mind from her own sufferings, had already begun to take an interest in that motionless sufferer whose countenance was so thickly veiled, for she not unnaturally suspected that it was a case of some distressing facial sore.

She had merely been told that the patient was a servant, which was true, but it happened that the poor creature, a native of Picardy, named Elise Rouquet, had been obliged to leave her situation, and seek a home with a sister who ill-treated her, for no hospital would take her in.