"You said you found me unconscious?"
"Yes."
"How did you revive me?"
"I carried you to the sofa under the window, which I opened. I then chafed your hands, but I think the wind and spray restored you."
"I don't remember fainting before; and—oh, well, this whole experience has been so strange that I can't realize it."
"Don't try to. If I'm a little out of my head, your soul will be out of your body if you don't take better care of yourself. You might as well be killed by lightning as over-fatigue. That doctor seems to think you are made of india-rubber."
"I've laughed to myself more than once at your injunctions to the doctor since Zillah revived. We've had such a narrow escape that I feel as if I ought not to laugh again for a year, but I can't help it. I won't thank you as I meant to—it might make you vain. Good-night," and she gave my hand a quick, strong pressure, and went swiftly back to Mrs. Yocomb's room.
Had my hand clasped only flesh and blood, bone and sinew? No, indeed. I felt that I had had within my grasp a gratitude and friendly regard that was so full and real that the warm-hearted, impulsive girl would not trust herself to express it in words. Her manner, however, was so frank and unconstrained that I knew her feelings to be only those of gratitude and friendly regard, seeing clearly that she entertained no such thoughts as had come unbidden to me.
In spite of my fatigue, the habit of my life and the strong coffee would have banished all thought of sleep for hours to come, if there had been no other cause, but the touch of a little hand had put more glad awakening life within me than all the stimulants of the world.
I went downstairs and looked through the old house to see that all was right, with as much solicitude as if it were indeed my own home. Excepting the disorder I had caused in the kitchen and hall, it had the midnight aspect of quiet and order that might have existed for a century.