'Oh, papa, papa! has he been here?' cried Alison, feebly, in great anguish of mind, yet unable from weakness to raise her head from the pillow.
'No, for doubtless he knew not where you were.'
'Oh, he will be dead—dead with terror!' wailed Alison. 'Am I in a hospital?'
'No, child, in my house,' said the nun, sweetly.
'Your house?' queried Alison, with very open eyes.
'In the Beguinage, in the Rue Rouge.'
Thus it was that both Sir Ranald and Lord Cadbury had utterly failed to trace her, and fortunate it was indeed for Alison that she had fallen into such good hands as those of the Beguines, who are a religious order, altogether peculiar to Belgium, each nun having a private residence of her own within the general enclosure.
The clatter of the ponderous bell, as the pull left her hand, had soon brought aid to her. She was denuded of her wet and sodden attire, put to bed in the little mansion occupied by Sister Lisette, and, before the angelus bell rang in the chapel next forenoon, she was in a highly feverish state, and in a delirium which lasted several nights and days, with intermissions of fretful sleep, during all of which time nothing coherent could be gleaned from her as to her name, or where she resided, whence she came, and how it was that she was abroad in the streets alone and in such a night.
Her little ravings led them to know that she was English; her costume, and the delicacy and beauty of her person, that she was undoubtedly a lady; but, save a ring or two, she had no purse, card-case, or aught to indicate who she was; but the name of 'Alison' worked upon some of her clothing at once interested deeply Sister Lisette, who was also an Alison, but adopted the French diminutive of it.
The poor Beguines were quite uncertain what else they could do with her, but keep her till she grew well enough to be questioned; so she remained there in her little iron bed, tended by Lisette, unconscious and fever-stricken, while the lengthening days passed slowly over her aching head.