"Good morning!" she replied, coming to his side and stroking his forehead lightly. "And I can say with all my heart, after these awful days of suspense, that it is a good morning. You have been very ill."
"Oh, it was nothing," said Hopkins, endeavouring to conceal his surprise at the way things were going. "Only a little headache and rackety feeling generally. It will pass off. Barncastle was very good to let me have his quarters."
Lady Alice's face took on a troubled look.
"How beautiful it is out," said Toppleton, turning his eyes toward the snow-clad landscape again. "I was just thinking that we should have a white Christmas after all."
"Why, my dear, Christmas is over by two weeks. You have been ill here for three weeks yesterday."
"What?" cried Toppleton. "I?"
"Why, certainly," said Lady Alice. "Of course, you didn't know it, but it is so. You haven't had a lucid moment in all that time."
A sudden fear clutched at Toppleton's heart.
"But—but tell me, have I—what do—what have the doctors said—that I had lost my mind, was in danger of a living death; that—"
"Don't get so excited," returned Lady Alice, softly, still retaining the look of anxiety on her face. "Here, read this. It is a letter from your Rocky Mountain friend, I think, and I fancy it will amuse you. It has only just come."