Mr. Merrick shook his head.

“Weeks and weeks may pass yet,” he said, “and that poor girl’s story may still be a sealed secret to all of us.  We can only wait.”

So the day ended—­the first of many days that were to come.

CHAPTER II.

THE warm sunlight of July shining softly through a green blind; an open window with fresh flowers set on the sill; a strange bed, in a strange room; a giant figure of the female sex (like a dream of Mrs. Wragge) towering aloft on one side of the bed, and trying to clap its hands; another woman (quickly) stopping the hands before they could make any noise; a mild expostulating voice (like a dream of Mrs. Wragge again) breaking the silence in these words, “She knows me, ma’am, she knows me; if I mustn’t be happy, it will be the death of me!”—­such were the first sights, such were the first sounds, to which, after six weeks of oblivion, Magdalen suddenly and strangely awoke.

After a little, the sights grew dim again, and the sounds sank into silence.  Sleep, the merciful, took her once more, and hushed her back to repose.

Another day—­and the sights were clearer, the sounds were louder.  Another—­and she heard a man’s voice, through the door, asking for news from the sick-room.  The voice was strange to her; it was always cautiously lowered to the same quiet tone.  It inquired after her, in the morning, when she woke—­at noon, when she took her refreshment—­in the evening, before she dropped asleep again.  “Who is so anxious about me?” That was the first thought her mind was strong enough to form—­“Who is so anxious about me?”

More days—­and she could speak to the nurse at her bedside; she could answer the questions of an elderly man, who knew far more about her than she knew about herself, and who told her he was Mr. Merrick, the doctor; she could sit up in bed, supported by pillows, wondering what had happened to her, and where she was; she could feel a growing curiosity about that quiet voice, which still asked after her, morning, noon, and night, on the other side of the door.

Another day’s delay—­and Mr. Merrick asked her if she was strong enough to see an old friend.  A meek voice, behind him, articulating high in the air, said, “It’s only me.”  The voice was followed by the prodigious bodily apparition of Mrs. Wragge, with her cap all awry, and one of her shoes in the next room.  “Oh, look at her! look at her!” cried Mrs. Wragge, in an ecstasy, dropping on her knees at Magdalen’s bedside, with a thump that shook the house.  “Bless her heart, she’s well enough to laugh at me already.  ‘Cheer, boys, cheer—!’ I beg your pardon, doctor, my conduct isn’t ladylike, I know.  It’s my head, sir; it isn’t me. I must give vent somehow, or my head will burst!” No coherent sentence, in answer to any sort of question put to her, could be extracted that morning from Mrs. Wragge.  She rose from one climax of verbal confusion to another—­and finished her visit under the bed, groping inscrutably for the second shoe.