Chapter Twenty One.
The Consequences.
When Rhoda opened her eyes she was lying in a strange bed, and some one was sitting by her side, anxiously watching her face. It was not Nurse par excellence, but the matron of another house, whose features seemed unfamiliar, despite their kindly expression.
“You are better? You feel rested now?” she questioned, and Rhoda struggled wearily to form a a reply.
“My head aches. I feel—tired!”
“Yes, yes, of course. Don’t speak, but lie quite still; I will stay beside you.”
A soothing hand was pressed upon her own, and once again her eyes closed, and she floated away into that strange, dream-like world. Sometimes all was blank, at other times she was dimly conscious of what went on around, as when voices murmured together by her side, and Nurse related how she had spoken and answered a question, and the doctor declared in reply that she was better, decidedly better! She was heavy and weary, and had no desire but to be left alone, while time passed by in a curious, dizzy fashion, light and darkness succeeding each other with extraordinary celerity. Then gradually all became clear; she was lying in the sick room where patients suffering from non-infectious complaints were taken. The pressure at her head was giving way, allowing glimmering flashes of memory. What was it?—a terrible, terrible nightmare; a horror as of falling from a great height; a sudden, numbing crash... Where has she been? What had she done? And then with another struggling gleam—the toboggan!
Her cry of distress brought the nurse to her side, while she gasped out a feeble—
“I remember! I was tobogganing.—I was too quick. I suppose I fell?”