Another couple of days passed, and he began to question the kind woman whom he had come to regard as a sort of strong, protective force between him and anguish, without any desire to give it a name, or realize an individual.  But now he saw that he had been nursed by hands as refined as they were skilful, and he dimly perceived that he owed his life mainly to the wholly impersonal yet absorbed devotion of two women—­gentle, firm-faced, women—­who had fought death for him and won.  Just a professional service for a professional fee; yet his debt was measureless.  These are the things, he feebly understood, that women do for men; and what had been mere hearsay to his strong manhood had become experience.

Actually a ray of sunshine had been allowed to penetrate the shaded room.  He watched it enchanted.  Flowers were on the table near him.  There was a delicious sense of warmth and summer scents.

“Where am I?” He turned his bandaged head stiffly toward the nurse beside him.

“In Threlfall Tower—­the house of Mr. Edmund Melrose,” she said, bending over him.

The nurse saw him smile.

“That’s queer.  What happened?”

His companion gave him a short account of the accident and of Undershaw’s handling of it.  Then she refused to let her patient talk any more, and left him with instructions not to tire his head with trying to remember.  He lay disconnectedly dreaming.  A stream of clear water, running shallow over greenish pebbles and among stones, large and small—­and some white things floating on it.  The recollection teased him, and a slight headache warned him to put it aside.  He tried to go to sleep.

Suddenly, there floated into view a face vaguely seen, a girl’s figure, in a blue dress, against a background of mountain.  Who was it?—­where had he come across her?

A few days later, when, for the first time, he was sitting up raised on pillows, and had been allowed to lift a shaking hand to help the nurse’s hand as it guided a cup of soup to his lips, she said to him in her low, pleasant voice: 

“Several people have been to inquire for you to-day.  I’ll bring you the cards.”

She fetched them from a table near and read the names.  “Lord Tatham, and his mother, Lady Tatham.  They’ve sent you flowers every day.  These are Duddon roses.”  She held up a glass vase before him.  “Mrs. Penfold and Miss Penfold.”

He shook his head feebly.

“Don’t know any of them.”

Nurse Aston laughed at him.

“Oh, yes, you do.  Lord Tatham was at college with you.  He’s coming to see you one day soon.  And Miss Penfold saw you just before the accident.  She was sketching in St. John’s Vale, and you helped her fish something out of the water.”

“By Jove!—­so I did,” he said, slowly.  “Tatham?” He pondered.  “Tell Lady Tatham I’m much obliged to her.”

And he went to sleep again.

The next time he woke, he saw an unfamiliar figure sitting beside him.  His hold upon himself seemed to have grown much stronger.  It was evening, and though the windows were still wide open a lamp had been lit.