“The doctor will be here presently,” said Mildred, returning to me with a shining face.

“And . . . he?”

“Yes, perhaps he will be permitted to come, too.”

She was telling me how baby had been discovered—­by means of Mrs. Oliver’s letter which had been found in my pocket—­when there was the whirr of an electric bell in the corridor outside, followed (as soon as Mildred could reach the door) by the rich roll of an Irish voice.

It was Dr. O’Sullivan, and in a moment he was standing by my bed, his face ablaze with smiles.

“By the Saints of heaven, this is good, though,” he said.  “It’s worth a hundred dozen she is already of the woman we brought here first.”

“That was last night, wasn’t it?” I asked.

“Well, not last night exactly,” he answered.  And then I gathered that I had been ill, seriously ill, being two days unconscious, and that Martin had been in a state of the greatest anxiety.

“He’s coming, isn’t he?” I said.  “Will he be here soon?  How does he look?  Is he well?  Did he finish his work?”

“Now, now, now,” said the doctor, with uplifted hands.  “If it’s exciting yourself like this you’re going to be, it isn’t myself that will he taking the risk of letting him come at all.”

But after I had pleaded and prayed and promised to be good he consented to allow Martin to see me, and then it was as much as I could do not to throw my arms about his neck and kiss him.

I had not noticed what Mildred was doing during this time, and almost before I was aware of it somebody else had entered the room.

It was dear old Father Dan.

“Glory be to God!” he cried at sight of me, and then he said: 

“Don’t worry, my daughter, now don’t worry,”—­with that nervous emphasis which I knew by long experience to be the surest sign of my dear Father’s own perturbation.

I did not know then, or indeed until long afterwards, that for six months past he had been tramping the streets of London in search of me (day after day, and in the dark of the night and the cold of the morning); but something in his tender old face, which was seamed and worn, so touched me with the memory of the last scene in my mother’s room that my eyes began to overflow, and seeing this he began to laugh and let loose his Irish tongue on us.

“My blissing on you, doctor!  It’s the mighty proud man ye’ll be entoirely to be saving the life of the swatest woman in the world.  And whisha, Sister, if ye have a nip of something neat anywhere handy, faith it isn’t my cloth will prevent me from drinking the health of everybody.”

If this was intended to cheer me up it failed completely, for the next thing I knew was that the doctor was bustling the dear old Father out of the room, and that Mildred was going out after him.

She left the door open, though, and as soon as I had calmed down a little I listened intently for every sound outside.