"I want to see Miss Drury. Please go and tell her that Louie Coverdale has brought her some honeysuckle, and ask her to come quickly."
"Lord, have mercy upon us!" ejaculated the woman, in great dismay. And then she disappeared for a moment, and her trembling voice went echoing through the long passages of the old house, while I, faint and weary, stood leaning against the post of the door.
A man came out next, a venerable man, with delicate features and snow-white hair; and at the sight of him, I broke out into an exceeding bitter cry.
"You are the rector," I wailed, "and you are angry with me. If Miss Drury would come, she would understand everything. Why don't you send for her? Why is she not here?"
Even while I was pouring out these wild words, I felt the rector's hands upon my arm, and I was drawn gently indoors and nearer to the light. But somehow the kind hands seemed not to be strong enough to hold me, and the light melted into darkness. There came a sound in my ears like the roaring of many waters, and then I knew no more.
Once or twice I was vaguely aware that one or two people were busy about me, and that I was in great pain of body and trouble of mind. But nothing was clear and plain. And once I dreamed a feverish dream of the house in the dreary London street where Ronald had lain sick unto death; and I thought that he was really dead, and that I was dying and going straight to him.
How long these strange fancies lasted I do not know. It seemed to me that I was a long while in a land of phantoms, where the dead and the living drifted about together; and their words had no meaning, their forms no substance. But at last I awoke, and the waking was as bewildering as the dreams had been.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
AWAKING.