"Her Grace!" I managed to say.
"Is quite unhurt, thanks to you, my brave child," said Mistress Curtis. "You have saved her life."
"Then all is well," said I, sinking back. That was all I cared to know. For days I lay in great danger, but not in any great suffering. Sometimes I recognized those about me, and sometimes not, but I suffered little, and lay most of the time in a kind of contented apathy. I had the best attendance, and Master Butts, the king's own physician, came to see me at the Duke's instance. He was a kind, benevolent old man, and much valued by the king, though he made no secret of his leaning to the new doctrine. I understood all his questions, and made a great effort to answer them clearly, but I was conscious all the time that I was talking arrant nonsense. I saw him shake his head as he turned away.
"I fear there is not much hope," I heard him say in a low tone to Mistress Curtis. "If she lives she will be a lunatic, or more likely, an idiot."
I understood his words, and they somehow angered me and roused me from the lethargy which was again stealing over my senses. I made a great effort to collect myself, and said, rather sharply:
"I won't be an idiot! I know what I wish to say, but—" the wrong word was near coming again, but I caught it in time—"I don't say the words I mean."
"Exactly," said the doctor, returning to the bedside, and regarding me with renewed interest. "You know what you mean, all the time you are saying something else. Is that so?"
"Yes, sir," I answered.
"Well, you must be a good girl and do as you are bid, and we will hope for the best. I think, Mistress Curtis, with all respect to Dr. Benton's opinion—" here he bowed to the other physician, who bowed again—"I think it would be well to try our patient with a little more nourishing diet—carefully, and by degrees, Dr. Benton—and watch the effect, and if there is any friend she specially wishes to see—as I think you told me she asked for some one?"
"Yes, she has often asked for her Aunt Davis."