'Where am I?' she said, faintly.
'Thank heaven, you speak, and rationally at last,' said her attendant, casting aside her embroidery and coming softly to her side, laid her cool hand gently on Alison's forehead. 'Pauvre enfant! pauvre enfant!' she repeated, caressingly.
'But where am I, and who are you?' asked Alison, in a weak but impatient manner.
'I am Sister Lisette, and you are safe, safe with friends, and ere long your own people will soon be here to inquire for you.'
'My friends,' she murmured, with a puzzled expression, as her thoughts now went back to her father's sick-room in the Hôtel St. Antoine; to Cadbury, at the thought of which she shivered; to the Bal Masqué at the theatre; the Café au Progrès, and the insolence of 'Captain Smith;' her flight through the snowy streets; her fall at the door of a house, the nature of which she knew not; all these things floated dimly and dreamily before her now, though they seemed to have happened but a few hours ago.
'How fortunate that you had the power to ring our bell before you fainted, child,' said the nun, caressing her and kissing her cheek. 'You might have died in the snow otherwise.'
'Last night?'
'No—child—it was several nights ago.'
'Several?'
'Yes.'