"She is coming round," the doctor said. "She is not so far gone as the other lassie."
Dinah wondered hazily what he could mean, wondered if by any chance he suspected that long and dreary wandering of her spirit up and down the mountain-side. She nestled her head down against Eustace's shoulder with a feeling of unutterable thankfulness that she had returned in time.
Her impressions after that were of a very dim and shadowy description. She supposed the brandy had made her sleepy. Very soon she drifted off into a state of semi-consciousness in which she realized nothing but the strong holding of his arms. She even vaguely wondered after a time whether this also were not a dream, for other fantasies began to crowd about her. She rocked on a sea of strange happenings on which she found it impossible to focus her mind. It seemed to have broken adrift as it were—a rudderless boat in a gale. But still that sense of security never wholly left her. Dreaming or waking, the force of his personality remained with her.
It must have been hours later, she reflected afterwards, that she heard the Colonel's voice exclaim hoarsely over her head, "In heaven's name, say she isn't dead!"
And, "Of course she isn't," came Eustace's curt response. "Should I be carrying her if she were?"
She tried to open her eyes, but could not. They seemed to be weighted down. But she did very feebly close her numbed hands about Eustace's coat. Emphatically she did not want to be handed over like a bale of goods to the Colonel.
He clasped her to him reassuringly, and presently she knew that he bore her upstairs, holding her comfortably close all the way.
"Don't go away from me!" she begged him weakly.
"Not so long as you want me, little sweetheart," he made answer. But her woman's heart told her that a parting was imminent notwithstanding.
In all her life she had never had so much attention before. She seemed to have entered upon a new and amazing phase of existence. Colonel de Vigne faded completely into the background, and she found herself in the care of Biddy and the doctor. Eustace left her with a low promise to return, and she had to be satisfied with that thought, though she would fain have clung to him still.