"Where am I?" John asked his nurse a few days later. "Is this a hospital?"
"No, it is a small suite," she told him. "Some one who was not going to occupy it for a while offered the use of it to Doctor Wing, so he brought you here and engaged me to take care of you."
Helen had insisted that her agency in the matter was not to be known—at least, not at present, and when John came to himself she withdrew from the rooms altogether.
"A man does not like to be under obligations to a woman," she had said, "and doubtless we shall soon hear from his friends, who will then assume the care of him."
But John, as he slowly improved, in spite of his indifference to life, appeared intuitively to realize that he was not wholly indebted to the good doctor for the comforts he was enjoying. The rooms were handsomely furnished; there were dainty and womanly touches all around him that somehow suggested a familiar atmosphere; the bed linen and towels were fine and heavy; a rich, warm-hued dressing robe and nice underwear had been provided for him, and, with the artistic tray on which his food was served, the pretty hand-painted china, and bright flowers in unique vases, besides many luxuries to tempt his appetite, all betrayed a thoughtful interest that strangers, or a strange doctor, would hardly bestow upon one so destitute as himself.
He talked very little with either his physician or Mrs. Harding; asked no questions, yet was always appreciative of any service rendered him. By the end of four weeks he was able to sit up in a great easy-chair by a sunny window, where he would remain as long as was permitted, sometimes sitting with closed eyes, apparently thinking; at others manifesting a trifle more interest than heretofore by studying the surrounding buildings and his rooms.
He was now allowed to have a daily paper to look over, and Doctor Wing tried to draw him out on current events and other subjects, now and then telling a pleasant story or a piquant joke; but while John was always most courteous in his bearing and conversation he could hardly be said to be responsive to these efforts in his behalf.
One day there came a tap on the door leading into Helen's apartment. John caught the sound, although the door of the room he was in was partially closed. Mrs. Harding answered the summons, there followed a few low-spoken words, and presently the woman returned, bearing in her hands a basket of luscious fruit, a few fragrant flowers carelessly scattered over it.
"Where did you get it?" the man inquired, his face lighting with pleasure at the attractive offering. It was the first really spontaneous sign of interest he had manifested.
"A lady who lives in the next suite sent it in to you," Mrs. Harding explained, as she laid a tempting peach, with a bunch of grapes, upon a plate and passed it to him.