"They cure the sick here, do they? But I will cure my husband myself. I know the way." She smiled. "Take me to him, Esther. How slow you are. Beloved Esther—I don't thank you—I have no words to say thank you—but my heart is so happy I think it will burst."
The porter came forward, then a nurse. Several ceremonies had to be gone through, several remarks made, several questions asked. Valentine heard and saw nothing. Esther helped Valentine to take off her cloak; and she stood in her simple long plain white dress, with her bright hair like a glory round her happy face.
The nurse who finally conducted them to the ward where Wyndham lay looked at her in a sort of bewilderment. Esther and the nurse went first, and Valentine slowly followed between the long rows of beds; some of the men said afterwards that an angel had gone through the ward on the night that the strolling minstrel, poor fellow, died. The sister who had charge of the ward turned and whispered a word to Esther, then she pushed aside a screen which surrounded one of the beds.
"Your husband is very ill," she said, looking with a world of pity into Valentine's bright eyes. "You ought to be prepared; he is very ill."
"Thank you, I am quite prepared. I have come to cure him."
Then she went inside the screen, and Esther and the nurse remained without.
Wyndham was lying with his eyes closed; his sunken cheeks, his deathly pallor, his quick and hurried breath might have prepared the young wife for the worst. They did not. She stood for a moment at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped in ecstasy, her eyes shining, a wonderful smile bringing back the beauty to her lips. Then she came forward and lay gently down by the side of the dying man. She slipped her hand under his head and laid her cheek to his.
"At last, Gerald," she said, "at last you have come back! You didn't die. You are changed, greatly changed; but you didn't die, Gerald."
He opened his eyes and looked her full in the face.
"Valentine!"