This transient dream of consciousness was succeeded by an interval during which I can only recollect nightmarish visions and miseries. The next thing that my memory recalls definitely is a short conversation between two people whose voices sounded to me as though coming from some remote distance, though in reality, as I knew afterwards, they were close to my bedside.
"What is this case?" said the first voice.
"It's a woman who was run over by a cab," replied the second; "her leg is broken, and she has other injuries also. She was brought in yesterday morning, and hasn't recovered her senses properly yet."
"Indeed!" returned the former speaker. "How did you find out her name, then? I see you've got it stuck up over the bed."
"Oh, there was an envelope in her pocket addressed to Caroline Jill, No. — Chester Square," was the answer. "We sent to the address to ask if she was known there, and to say she had been brought to the hospital. It appeared that she had been lady's-maid at the house, and been dismissed the day before, and they knew nothing of who her belongings were, or where she lived, or anything about her."
As I heard no more, I conclude that here the speakers moved away from my bed. The few words they had said, however, had sufficed to enlighten my cloudy state of mind. At first I had listened without having an idea that I could be the person referred to; but when the name of Caroline Jill was spoken I remembered all about myself, knew clearly who I was, and realised what had occurred to me. Yes; I had gone to a pillar-box to post the letter to my stepmother, and there had been an unmanageable horse to be avoided. Then there had come suddenly a rattle, a violent concussion, confusion, pain, and utter blank; and I comprehended that I had been run over and brought to the accident ward of a hospital. I recollected, too, my prudent design of dropping the name of Jill; and as I realised that that intention was frustrated for the present, I felt a faint trace of amusement at the persistency with which the old childish name had stuck to me.
Was it true that my leg was broken, as those two people had just said? Very likely. Anyhow I would take their word for it, for I certainly did not feel inclined to stir hand or foot to verify the statement. And as my head ached, and I was quite exhausted with the effort of so much consecutive thought, I speedily relapsed into my former comatose condition.
When next I recovered my senses, my head was clear; I remembered directly how I came to be in a hospital, and looked around me. It was night, and by the dim light of a shaded lamp I could see the nurse in charge of the ward sitting in an upright-backed wooden chair, where she had fallen fast asleep notwithstanding the hardness and discomfort of her seat. I could see, too, a glass containing lemonade standing on a table near the head of my bed, and, as I was parching with thirst, I managed slowly, and with difficulty, to draw one hand out from under the bed-clothes, and stretch it out towards the tempting drink. Alas! the glass was out of my reach. The sight of the delicious liquid made my thirst grow worse and worse, till it seemed quite unendurable, and I was impelled to try and wake the nurse, to ask her to give it to me. Accordingly I called out to her as loudly as I could. But my utmost efforts produced only a wheezing feeble sound, which was powerless to produce any impression on her slumbers. The amount of fatigue which it cost me to uplift my voice was quite disproportionate to the insignificance of the result, and I was so tired with the attempt to make myself heard, and the exertion of getting my hand out of bed and reaching after the glass of lemonade, that I realised it was useless to think of waking the nurse, and that I must resign myself to bear the thirst as best I could, till she should wake of herself. Mortification at my helplessness, and profound pity for my poor dear self, caused tears to rise to my eyes and moisten my cheeks. I lay still and watched her so anxiously that one might almost have thought the mere ardour of my gaze ought to have disturbed her repose. Still she slumbered on blissfully. Oh, why would not she wake when I was so very very thirsty!
Suddenly I heard a door open at the other end of the room, and, on looking round, saw a woman enter whose dress showed her to belong to some Sisterhood. I had never thought well of Sisters in my life. They always had seemed to me to be useless, so eccentric as to be well-nigh mad, and—though otherwise harmless—yet objectionable on the ground that their mere existence conveyed a continual tacit reproach and assumption of superiority to more self-indulgent mortals, who shrank from the strictness and hardness which the Sisters imposed upon themselves voluntarily. Hence the fact of the new-comer's wearing a Sister's habit sufficed to prejudice me against her; and on an ordinary occasion I should not have spoken to—far less asked a favour of—her.
But the present was not an ordinary occasion. All I cared for was to have the thirst that tormented me relieved with the least possible delay; and no sooner did I see her than I made a frantic effort to call out loud enough for her to hear. The cry, feeble as it was, reached her ears; and as she was not sure from which bed it proceeded, she advanced slowly up the room, saying, in a low voice, "Who called me?"