“We kneel how weak, we rise how full of power”?
No one can precisely tell us. But the facts remain. By these means are body and spirit renewed.
For the next day or two Frithiof realized little. To the surprise and delight of all he slept almost incessantly, waking only to take food, to make sure that Sigrid was with him, and to enjoy a delicious sense of ease and relief.
“He is out of the wood now,” said Dr. Morris cheerfully. “You came just in time, Miss Falck. But I will give you one piece of advice: if possible stay in England and make your home with him; he ought not to be so much alone.”
“You think that he may have such an attack again?” asked Sigrid wistfully.
“No, I don’t say that at all. He has a wonderful constitution, and there is no reason why he should ever break down again. But he is more likely to get depressed if he is alone, and you will be able to prevent his life from growing too monotonous.”
So as she lived through those quiet days in the sick-room, Sigrid racked her brain to think of some way of making money, and searched, as so many women have done before her, the columns of the newspapers, and made fruitless inquiries, and wasted both time and money in the attempt. One day Roy, coming in at his usual hour in the morning to relieve guard, brought her a fat envelope which he had found waiting for her in the hall. She opened it eagerly, and made a little exclamation of disappointment and vexation.
“Anything wrong?” he asked.
She began to laugh, though he fancied he saw tears in her eyes. “Oh,” she said, “it seems so ridiculous when I had been expecting such great things from it. You know I have been trying to hear of work in London, and there was an advertisement in the paper which said that two pounds a week might easily be realized either by men or women without interfering with their present occupations, and that all particulars would be given on the receipt of eighteen-pence. So I sent the money, and here is a wretched aluminium pencil in return, and I am to make this two pounds a week by getting orders for them.”
The absurdity of the whole thing struck her more forcibly and she laughed again more merrily; Roy laughed too.