Mrs. Chalmers went up to Hyacinth; with a soft womanly touch she put back the rich, clustering hair, with keen womanly eyes she noted the loveliness of the white face.
"Has she fainted? Who is she?" she asked of her son.
"I do not know--I had no time to speak to her. She is some lady who has called for medical advice, no doubt. It seems to me more like a case of incipient brain fever than of mere fainting; by the strange way in which she cried out I should imagine her to be quite delirious."
Then they both stood for some minutes gazing in silence on that exquisite face.
"She does not look more than eighteen," said the doctor--"she is very young. What shall we do with her, mother?"
"We must do as the good Samaritan did when he found his fellow-man wounded and helpless by the wayside," was the gentle reply.
It was in September that the poor distraught girl went in the madness of her grief and pain to the doctor's house, and if she had been a child of the house, she could not have been more kindly treated. It was October when she opened her eyes with a faint gleam of reason in their troubled depths. She looked around in wonder; she had not the least idea where she was. The room she was in was exquisitely neat and clean, there were some fine engravings on the walls, the furniture was of quaint design, and there were a few vases and ornaments; yet it was neither the almost royal grandeur of Queen's Chase nor the simple luxury of the hotel at Bergheim. Where was she? Why was she lying in this strange place with this feeling of weakness and weariness upon her?
Presently a kind, motherly, comely face bent over her, and a quiet, soothing voice said: "I am so glad to find you a little better, my dear."
"Have I been very ill?" she asked; and the sound of her voice was so faint, so unlike her own that it seemed as though it came from a great distance.
"Yes, you have been very ill, dear child."
"Where am I?" she asked; and the kind face smiled again.
"I will tell you all about it when you are a little better. You are quite safe and with good friends. Try to drink this and go to sleep again."
Hyacinth drank something that was warm and nice, and then looked up in the kindly face.
"Do you know," she said, "it is very strange, but I have really forgotten my own name!" She laughed a little hysterical laugh, and Mrs. Chalmers looked anxious.