"I am Mrs. Eddy, who moved into one of those vacant houses two blocks from here," the woman explained. "I have some information of interest to you."
"Is it about Helen Nash?" Marion asked, so eagerly that there could be no mistaking the subject nearest her heart.
The woman nodded and smiled, and Marion seized her by the arm and almost dragged her into the hall and thence into the reception room.
"Where is she?—tell me quickly!" Two of the other girls in the drawing-room, hearing these words and surmising their significance, came rushing in and caught the visitor's answer, thus:
"She's over at my house. She came there last night. I had no idea who she was until I saw the articles in the newspaper—I didn't get it until late—and then I came right over."
"But," said Marion, apprehensively, "why didn't she come right home? What was the matter—couldn't she explain who she was?"
"The girl was not in her right mind," Mrs. Eddy said. "She was in a delirium. It was about 10 o'clock at night, and evidently she had been tramping the streets for hours in the storm."
"How is she now? Oh! I must go right to her! Did she get lost in the storm? Girls, girls! Come here! Helen's found! Is she—is she—ill—very ill, Mrs. Eddy?"
"I don't think she is seriously ill," the woman replied, with an expression of sweet encouragement. "I had a doctor call, and he didn't seem to think there was any immediate danger, although she hasn't talked rationally yet. She is in bed, and has considerable fever."
"Would it be all right for me to go and see her—is it against the doctor's orders? I'd be very careful; and, besides, I'm a nurse—in fact, we all are nurses."