"Jack grieved?" I said. "Why! Jack is dead! We had the notice of his death weeks ago from his friend, Paul Caillard."
I saw them all look at me as if frightened. Dr. Pettit reached me first and put something under my nostrils which vitalized my wandering senses. I straightened myself and cried out peremptorily.
"What is it, oh! what is it?"
I saw Katherine look at Dr. Pettit, as if for permission, and the young physician's lips form the words, "Tell her."
"No, dear. Jack isn't dead," she said softly. "He was missing for some time, and was brought into our hospital terribly wounded, but he is very much alive now, and will be here in New York in two weeks."
I felt the pungent revivifier in Dr. Pettit's hand steal under my nostrils again, but I pushed it aside and sat up.
"I am not at all faint," I said abruptly, and then to Katherine
Sonnot. "Please say that over again, slowly."
She repeated her words slowly. "I should have waited to come over with him," she added, "for he is still quite weak, but Dr. Braithwaite had to send some one over to attend to business for the hospital. He selected me, and so I had to come on earlier."
So it was true, then, this miracle of miracles, this return of the dead to life! Jack, the brother-cousin on whom I had depended all my life, was still in the same world with me! Some of the terrible burden I had been bearing since Dicky's disappearance slipped away from me. If anyone in the world could solve the mystery of Dicky's actions, it would be Jack Bickett.
Dr. Pettit's voice broke into my reverie. I saw that Lillian and Katherine Sonnot were deep in conversation. The young physician and I were far enough away from them so that there was no possibility of his low tones being heard. He bent over my chair, and his eyes were burning with a light that terrified me.