“In the mean time, quite a crowd had gathered outside, and the conduct of the person who was in the carriage that had run over me was being indignantly criticised. It was a woman; and I had caught a glimpse of her at the very moment I was falling under the horses’ feet. She had not even condescended to get out of her carriage; but, calling a policeman, she had given him her name and address, adding, loud enough to be heard by the crowd, ‘I am in too great a hurry to stop. My coachman is an awkward fellow, whom I shall dismiss as soon as I get home. I am ready to pay any thing that may be asked.’
“She had also sent one of her cards for me. A policeman handed it to me; and I read the name, Baronne de Thaller.
“‘That’s lucky for you,’ said the doctor. ‘That lady is the wife of a very rich banker; and she will be able to help you when you get well.’
“The cab had now come. I was carried into it; and, an hour later, I was admitted at the hospital, and laid on a clean, comfortable bed.
“But my trunk!—my trunk, which contained all my things, all I had in the world, and, worse still, all the money I had left. I asked for it, my heart filled with anxiety. No one had either seen or heard of it. Had the porter missed me in the crowd? or had he basely availed himself of the accident to rob me? This was hard to decide.
“The good sisters promised that they would have it looked after, and that the police would certainly be able to find that man whom I had engaged near the intelligence-office. But all these assurances failed to console me. This blow was the finishing one. I was taken with fever; and for more than two weeks my life was despaired of. I was saved at last: but my convalescence was long and tedious; and for over two months I lingered with alternations of better and of worse.
“Yet such had been my misery for the past two years, that this gloomy stay in a hospital was for me like an oasis in the desert. The good sisters were very kind to me; and, when I was able, I helped them with their lighter work, or went to the chapel with them. I shuddered at the thought that I must leave them as soon as I was entirely well; and then what would become of me? For my trunk had not been found, and I was destitute of all.
“And yet I had, at the hospital, more than one subject for gloomy reflections. Twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays, visitors were admitted; and there was not on those days a single patient who did not receive a relative or a friend. But I, no one, nothing, never!
“But I am mistaken. I was commencing to get well, when one Sunday I saw by my bedside an old man, dressed all in black, of alarming appearance, wearing blue spectacles, and holding under his arm an enormous portfolio, crammed full of papers.
“‘You are Mlle. Lucienne, I believe,’ he asked.