But although he held me close, I could feel myself being drawn away.  There must have been that in my straining glance that made him aware, for of a sudden he cried out, lifted me bodily in his arms, and kissed me on the mouth.

My heart quite stopped beating, as a spent runner pauses, that he may gather new strength to go on.  With a sigh I fell back; but not into the water and the dark.

“By God, you’ve pulled her through, Jelnik!” cried the voice of Richard Geddes.

Came vague sounds, stirs, movements, hands upon me.  Then oblivion again.

I woke up one pleasant forenoon to find a brisk and capable young woman in white sitting in my room, her head bent over the piece of linen she was hemming.  She was a healthy, handsome young woman, with hard, firm cheeks, hard, firm lips, and professional eyes and glasses.  She glanced up and met my wan stare.

“What are you doing here, if you please?” I asked politely.

“I have been nursing you, Miss Smith.  You have been quite ill, you know.”

I lay there looking at that self-contained, trained young woman, with feelings of almost ludicrous astonishment.  I remembered the skidding car; and Richard Geddes lying with his head on Alicia’s knees, and how we had both thought him dead; and myself sitting in the dust; and then the pain.  But it was astounding news that I had been very badly hurt full three weeks ago!

Alicia stole in and, seeing me awake, tried to smile, but cried instead, with a wet cheek against my hand.  A few minutes later Doctor Geddes himself appeared.  It was enough to scandalize any self-contained nurse to see a six-foot-three doctor behave in the most abandoned and unbedside manner!

“Sophy!” gulped the doctor, “oh, deuce take you, Sophronisba Two, what do you mean by scaring honest folks half out of their wits?”

The nurse was destined to receive another shock.  Richard of the Lion Heart dropped down on his knees beside Alicia, and laid his bearded cheek against my wan one, and for a while couldn’t speak.  Alicia tried to get her slender arms around him, and couldn’t.

“I think,” ventured the nurse, in level tones, “that the patient had better not be excited.  Shall I give her a stimulant, doctor?”

“The patient’s on the highroad to getting well,” said the doctor.  “And we’re the best of all stimulants, aren’t we, Sophy?”

When I began to get stronger, the dream which had haunted my illness came back with astonishing vividness and haunted my waking hours.  I knew it was a dream, for of course I hadn’t been in black water, I hadn’t strained toward a light upon the flood, and of course, I hadn’t really heard Nicholas Jelnik calling my name; and the kiss was part of the fantasy.  I watched him stealthily, this cool, collected, impersonal young man, to whom even the efficient nurse was astonishingly respectful, and pure laughter seized me at the idea of his crying aloud, being as agitated, as passionate, as fiercely insistent, as he had been in the vision.