Many were the visitors at the cottage on the mountain slope during Elsie’s illness. When the child grew better a favoured few were allowed to take a peep into the dimly-lighted room where, upon a bed as white as snow, the pallid, pathetically-beautiful image of tragic suffering lay. The wonderful hair had been carefully combed; it flowed like a golden cataract over the headrail of the bedstead. When the light of a candle shone upon it through the gloom of the darkened room the beholders marvelled at a depth and richness of colour such as they had never before thought possible.
Up from the vaults of blank unconsciousness floated the mind of the blind girl until she became cognisant of her immediate surroundings; but the past remained to her an utter blank. Bit by bit she recovered the faculty of speech. It would be more correct to say that she re-acquired it, for she picked up words from those around her almost as an infant does—only more rapidly and intelligently. Her sweet, equable disposition had not altered. Thus, she began to fill in the obliterated pages of her mind with serene unconsciousness. She never laughed, but a strain of music, a sweet scent, or a soft touch from the hands she had learnt to love for their constant kindness would bring to her pale face the light of a rare smile, and flood it with a soft colour that was good to behold.
Thus blind Elsie, after her sore travail and disappointment, drifted, a derelict, into a harbour of safety and loving-kindness.
Chapter Twelve.
Elsie’s Awakening.
Four years had come and gone; four times had the winter rains from the hidden Antarctic floated up to the storm-smitten shores of that continent over which the wings of Ancient Mystery still brood, and made sweet the ways of Spring.
The cottage still stood on the slope of Table Mountain but it was no longer alone; other dwellers of the city had selected sites and built near it. Moreover, it could not so readily be seen from a distance as formerly, for the reason that the bowering trees had enviously stretched forth their boughs around it.
Mr and Mrs du Plessis had been tenderly dealt with by Time; being young in heart they still knew youth, and the lady’s French vivacity remained unimpaired. Gertrude and Helena had grown into young women comely to see, and the path leading to their dwelling was often trodden by the feet of the young men of the city and the officers of the garrison. The suit of a young minister of the Dutch Reformed Church had found favour with Gertrude. He had graduated in Leyden in a distinguished manner three years previously. Mr Brand and Gertrude were engaged and meant to be married in the early part of the ensuing year.