It seemed that the shadows were being withdrawn from his eyes, just as a curtain is pulled back from a window. As consciousness became a more certain quantity he wondered vaguely why he did not feel drenched and uncomfortable, instead of cozy and warm. He was aware of a pinkish-gray blur hanging above his head; this slowly resolved itself into a human face. While he could not distinguish the features in the darkened light of the room, he was certain that it was that of a woman.
"Trusia," he cried ecstatically.
"Please be quiet," responded an unfamiliar voice in a tone of undemurrable authority. He pondered. He puzzled. Finally he gathered courage to speak.
"Who are you?" he queried dubiously.
"I am the nurse," came back indulgently through the dim haze of semi-consciousness still enveloping him.
"Nurse," he exclaimed, throwing off the gray mist, to notice for the first time that he was in his own bed and room, in New York City. Accepting conditions as they were for the time being, he settled back and sighed the long, indolent sigh of convalescence. He glanced expectantly toward the door, Carrick should be coming soon with the much needed shaving things. Carrick? It all came back to him now. He no longer was satisfied to lie back comfortably on the pillow and dream the hazy dreams of the convalescent. Carrick was dead and he himself had been drowned—but Trusia? He groaned in great distress. The nurse hastened to his side.
"Are you in pain?" she asked, a trifle surprised that such a symptom should appear in this case.
"No," he said abstractedly, his mind revisiting the banks of the Vistula; "no, I am not in pain. I was thinking."
The nurse held a draught to his lips. Carter resolutely put it to one side. "Wait," he commanded, "I must know how I came here, or I will not rest with a thousand soporifics."
"Mr. Saunderson picked you up just as you were drowning in the Vistula. You have been ill ever since—delirious."