Ada stood on the farther side of the bed, looking and listening in increasing surprise and wonder.
Mrs. Heywood and the nurse stole in on tiptoe and beheld the scene in no less astonishment and perplexity, but Rolfe motioned them all away, and kept guard over the slumbers of the invalid as one who had a superior and undoubted right.
She slept quietly, awoke refreshed, and refused neither food nor medicine at his hands.
But he would not let her talk.
“Wait, my Ethel, till you are stronger,” he said, “and then we will tell each other all. In the mean time we may rest content in the knowledge that we are restored to each other, and no earthly power can part us.”
Lips and eyes smiled brightly, and a faint color stole into her cheek, but faded again as she moaned sadly, “My baby, my baby!” the tears stealing down her face.
“We will find her; she shall be restored to you. Nothing is impossible to a determined will,” he said with energy.
She believed him, and once more resigned herself to peaceful slumber.
It was now near midnight, yet a bright light burned in the sitting-room. Mr. and Mrs. Heywood and their daughter, too much excited to think of retiring, sat there waiting for they scarce knew what. Reluctantly leaving Ethel to the care of the nurse, Rolfe joined them.