CHAPTER XLVII.
FROM HEART OF VERY HEART.
Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of,
Where I hush and bless myself with silence.
—R. Browing.
It was as well perhaps that the cruel news should have come to Dolly as it did, suddenly, without the torture of apprehension, of sympathy. She knew the worst now, she had seen it printed for all the world to read; she knew the worst even while they carried her upstairs half conscious; some one said 'higher up,' and then came another flight, and she was laid on a bed and a window was opened, and a flapping handkerchief that she seemed to remember came dabbing on her face. It was evening when she awoke, sinking into life. She was lying on a little bed like her own, but it was not her own room. It was a room with a curious cross corner and a window with white curtains, through which the evening lights were still shining. There was a shaded green lamp in a closet opening out of the room, in the corner of which a figure was sitting at work with a coiffe like that one she had seen pass the window as she waited in the room down below.
A low sob brought the watcher to Dolly's side. She came up carrying the little shaded lamp. Dolly saw in its light the face of a sweet-looking woman that seemed strangely familiar. She said, 'Lie still, my dear child. I will get you some food,' and in a few minutes she came back with a cup of broth, which she held to her lips, for to her surprise Dolly found that her hands were trembling so that she could not hold the cup herself.
'You must use my hands,' said the lady, smiling. 'I am Mrs. Fane. You know my brother David. I am a nurse by trade.'
And nursed by these gentle hands, watched by these kind eyes, the days went by. Dolly 'had narrowly escaped a nervous fever,' the doctor said. 'She must be kept perfectly quiet; she could not have come to a better place to be taken care of.'
Mrs. Fane reminded Dolly one day of their first meeting in Mr. Royal's studio. 'I have been expecting you,' she said, with a smile. 'We seem to belong to each other.'