My return to consciousness was a painful, yet joyful experience. It was
almost like being flung in a frail boat out of a tempestuous sea into a
quiet harbour.
I seemed to hear myself saying, "My child shall not die. Poverty shall
not kill her. I am going to take her into the country . . . she will
recover. . . . No, no, it is not Martin. Martin is dead. . . . But his
eyes . . . don't you see his eyes. . . . Let me go."
Then all the confused sense of nightmare seemed to be carried away as by
some mighty torrent, and there came a great calm, a kind of morning
sweetness, with the sun shining through my closed eyelids, and not a
sound in my ears but the thin carolling of a bird.
When I opened my eyes I was in bed in a room that was strange to me. It
was a little like the Reverend Mother's room in Rome, having pictures of
the Saints on the walls, and a large figure of the Sacred Heart over the
mantelpiece; but there was a small gas fire, and a canary singing in a
gilded cage that hung in front of the window.
I was trying to collect my senses in order to realize where I was when
Sister Mildred's kind face, in her white wimple and gorget, leaned over
me, and she said, with a tender smile, "You are awake now, my child?"
Then memory came rushing back, and though the immediate past was still
like a stormy dream I seemed to remember everything.
"Is it true that I saw. . . ."
"Yes," said Mildred.
"Then he was not shipwrecked?"
"That was a false report. Within a month or two the newspapers had
contradicted it."
"Where is he?" I asked, rising from my pillow.
"Hush! Lie quiet. You are not to excite yourself. I must call the
doctor."
Mildred was about to leave the room, but I could not let her go.
"Wait! I must ask you something more."
"Not now, my child. Lie down."
"But I must. Dear Sister, I must. There is somebody else."
"You mean the baby," said Mildred, in a low voice.
"Yes."
"She has been found, and taken to the country, and is getting better
rapidly. So lie down, and be quiet," said Mildred, and with a long
breath of happiness I obeyed.
A moment afterwards I heard her speaking to somebody over the telephone
(saying I had recovered consciousness and was almost myself again), and
then some indistinct words came hack in the thick telephone voice like
that of a dumb man shouting down a tunnel, followed by sepulchral peals
of merry laughter.
"The doctor will be here presently," said Mildred, returning to me with
a shining face.
"And . . . he?"
"Yes, perhaps he will be permitted to come, too."
She was telling me how baby had been discovered--by means of Mrs.
Oliver's letter which had been found in my pocket--when there was the
whirr of an electric bell in the corridor outside, followed (as soon as
Mildred could reach the door) by the rich roll of an Irish voice.
It was Dr. O'Sullivan, and in a moment he was standing by my bed, his
face ablaze with smiles.
"By the Saints of heaven, this is good, though," he said. "It's worth a
hundred dozen she is already of the woman we brought here first."
"That was last night, wasn't it?" I asked.
"Well, not last night exactly," he answered. And then I gathered that I
had been ill, seriously ill, being two days unconscious, and that Martin
had been in a state of the greatest anxiety.
"He's coming, isn't he?" I said. "Will he be here soon? How does he
look? Is he well? Did he finish his work?"
"Now, now, now," said the doctor, with uplifted hands. "If it's exciting
yourself like this you're going to be, it isn't myself that will he
taking the risk of letting him come at all."
But after I had pleaded and prayed and promised to be good he consented
to allow Martin to see me, and then it was as much as I could do not to
throw my arms about his neck and kiss him.
I had not noticed what Mildred was doing during this time, and almost
before I was aware of it somebody else had entered the room.
It was dear old Father Dan.
"Glory be to God!" he cried at sight of me, and then he said:
"Don't worry, my daughter, now don't worry,"--with that nervous emphasis
which I knew by long experience to be the surest sign of my dear
Father's own perturbation.
I did not know then, or indeed until long afterwards, that for six
months past he had been tramping the streets of London in search of me
(day after day, and in the dark of the night and the cold of the
morning); but something in his tender old face, which was seamed and
worn, so touched me with the memory of the last scene in my mother's
room that my eyes began to overflow, and seeing this he began to laugh
and let loose his Irish tongue on us.
"My blissing on you, doctor! It's the mighty proud man ye'll be
entoirely to be saving the life of the swatest woman in the world. And
whisha, Sister, if ye have a nip of something neat anywhere handy, faith
it isn't my cloth will prevent me from drinking the health of
everybody."
If this was intended to cheer me up it failed completely, for the next
thing I knew was that the doctor was bustling the dear old Father out of
the room, and that Mildred was going out after him.
She left the door open, though, and as soon as I had calmed down a
little I listened intently for every sound outside.
It was then that I heard the whirr of the electric bell again, but more
softly this time, and followed by breathless whispered words in the
corridor (as of some one who had been running) and once more . . . I
knew, I knew, I knew!
After a moment Mildred came to ask me in a whisper if I was quite sure
that I could control myself, and though my heart was thumping against my
breast, I answered Yes.
Then I called for a hand-glass and made my hair a shade neater, and
after that I closed my eyes (God knows why) and waited.
There was a moment of silence, dead silence, and then--then I opened my
eyes and saw him standing in the open doorway.
His big, strong, bronzed face--stronger than ever now, and marked with a
certain change from the struggles he had gone through--was utterly
broken up. For some moments he did not speak, but I could see that he
saw the change that life had made in me also. Then in a low voice, so
low that it was like the breath of his soul, he said:
"Forgive me! Forgive me!"
And stepping forward he dropped to his knees by the side of my bed, and
kissed the arms and hands I was stretching out to him.
That was more than I could bear, and the next thing I heard was my
darling's great voice crying:
"Sister! Sister! Some brandy! Quick! She has fainted."
But my poor little fit of hysterics was soon at an end, and though
Martin was not permitted to stay more than a moment longer, a mighty
wave of happiness flowed over me, such as I had never known before and
may never know again.