"You were indeed brought here, but not from your own room. You have been here three weeks, Vivian. You fell from your horse into Mowbray Gulch and hurt your head, and you have had brain fever."
She spoke slowly, and he followed her words attentively, closing his eyes when she was through, and lying perfectly quiet for a minute. Then he said:
"Where is 'here?'"
"We are at Miss Evy Smith's. Her house was the nearest place, you know, and you had to be brought here."
"Evy Smith's!" he repeated, with a strange little laugh. "That's singular." After an interval, he added:
"Has she been nursing me?"
"She helped. She has been very, very kind. A sister could not have done more."
"She was always sweet and obliging," he observed. "But—Amanda, come sit down on the bed, won't you? My voice seems mighty weak, somehow."
"I mustn't let you talk," Amanda said. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and as she did so a flush settled upon her firm cheek and stayed there. Not for three years had she been so close to him. Perhaps he remembered, too. What he said was: