"Please help me out of this room, doctor," was all she said, and to
the doctor's questions later, she answered that her name used to be
Nellie, and that she used to sing, and she added. "I used to know
him."
The doctor saw at once that there was a romance somewhere, and in his
anxiety to experiment, he begged sister Mary to come back to the room
of his patient and sing for him.
"It may be the key that will open his brain to let in the rays of
intelligence," he pleaded, and at last Sister Mary consented to go
back and sing.
"Edward, Nellie will sing for you," said the doctor to his patient,
watching carefully the expression of his face.
"Good!" said Edward, clapping his poor bony hands together, and
showing evidence of great satisfaction upon his face.
At the foot of the bed, facing the invalid, stood Sister Mary. Her
face was pale and her lips were trembling, but by a supreme effort
she sang:
"Rendez-moi ma patrie,
Ou laissez-moi mourrir,
Rendez moi mon pays
Ou laissez-moi mourrir."
At the first sound of the sweet voice, Edward sat up in bed, and
watching eagerly the face of the singer, his eyes filled with tears.
When the voice ceased he fell back saying, "My God! Nellie!"
"I have killed him," said Sister Mary.
"No, you have saved him!" answered the doctor, bending over his
patient, whose face was covered with cold sweat, and every nerve
twitching.
"Sing again," commanded the doctor, and once more the sweet and
tender voice of Sister Mary was heard, and Edward opened his eyes.
When the song was over, he looked strangely at the doctor, and said,
"Where am I? Where is Nellie?"
"You are all right," said the doctor; and Sister Mary walked out of
the room, going to the little chapel of the hospital, where she
prayed the most fervent prayer of her life. "My God. Give me the
strength to keep away from him," she prayed, and her prayer must have
been heard, because Edward never saw Sister Mary again.
From this time Edward's recovery was gradual and uninterrupted.
From the time he first lost his reason he remembered nothing. A month
later he was in Chicago visiting his friend, the Russian, and from
there he went to his home in Canada, where no one ever expected to
see him again, except Marie Louise, his first love, who said that she
always felt that he would come back.
"Tell me of your life," she asked him.
"It would do you no good," he said, and never told her; but he often
asked her to sing, "Rendez-moi ma patrie."