Then he was gone again into that murky region which was not life and which was not death.
“Nurse!” said Fabius Waite, tensely, “he spoke. He recognized us.... What—what does that mean?”
The nurse knew no more than they. It might be a promise held out to them; it might have been his farewell to the world. She could not tell.
“He knew us,” Fabius said to himself again and again. “He knew us.”
So the boy who could not live lived on. Intervals of consciousness came again and again, and lasted longer and longer. The physicians, who would not admit of hopes at first, were compelled—against their wills, it seemed—to give Potter a reluctant chance of recovery.... Another ten days saw him fully conscious—not safe yet, but with chances of safety multiplied. Though doubts existed in the medical mind, none were permitted to exist in the minds of Fabius Waite and his wife. Their son was to be given back to them; they knew it.
Despite fractured bones, despite invisible but awful injuries, Potter not only clung to the life that was in him, but reached out and strengthened his grasp upon it, until even the medical mind was convinced and, with due eye to its reputation, gave to the parents the assurance, “We’ve saved him,” and then expatiated on the miracle wrought by its skill. Two months after the catastrophe Potter Waite was on his snail-like way to recovery.
At first Potter seemed to have little curiosity regarding his accident. He appeared not to remember it or to have any idea why he was in his bed in a hospital. Later he asked questions.
“Somebody was with me,” he said one day. “When we fell ...”
“Hildegarde von Essen,” his mother said.
“Was she—”