When Artemis returned from her work early in the afternoon, tired, but not unhappy—for the improvement in her husband’s health had filled her with hope—Jason was up and dressed.
“A miracle has happened!” he announced, laughing. And then, hurriedly and impetuously, he told her of the doctor’s visit.
“Oh, is it true?” she asked. “It is too wonderful! I daren’t believe it, Jason.”
Placing the parcels she was carrying on a chair, she flung her arms about his neck and kissed him.
“Oh, my boy, my boy!” she cried.
Worn out with the week’s work in the daytime and the nursing by night, she could not keep back her tears; her sobs, deep and convulsive, revealed to him the extent of the suffering she had so bravely endured through the past few months....
At teatime he returned to bed, and she prepared to go out.
“Sleep, if you can, Jason dear,” she said. “I am going to do the shopping for the weekend.”
She hurried off to the café with a light heart. The envelope with her weekly seventy-five drachmas was waiting for her. As she was leaving, she met Onias at the entrance.
“Hello, Lucette!” he said, smiling and shaking hands; “how are you?”