"I have seldom seen anything like it, nurse!" he had said. "Physically, she seems to be improving. Her pulse is quite satisfactory; she has no temperature; and her strength is well maintained. But I do not understand this long condition of coma. I wonder how it will end!"
The nurse, as she sat by the patient's bedside, was thinking of what the doctor had said, and was curiously watching her face.
The woman's eyes opened, and the nurse thought she saw the light of reason in them. She looked curiously around the room.
"Who are you?" she said.
"I'm a nurse from the hospital, Mrs. Stepaside. You haven't been very well."
"Ay, I remember being poorly. Where's Paul?"
"He's not come back yet," said the nurse.
"What do you mean? Ay, but he's near! Don't you hear them shouting?"
In spite of the fact that she still believed her patient to be unconscious, she listened, and thought she heard distant shouting.
"I know, I know! It's Paul coming home! He's cleared himself. Do you see? He's proved himself innocent! I knew he would! My own clever boy! There! There!"