For many weeks there seemed no hope of rescue, and two physicians, distinguished by skill and success in their profession, finally admitted that they were powerless to cope with this typhoid serpent, whose tightening folds were gradually strangling her.

At length most unexpectedly, when science laid down its weapons to watch the close of the struggle, and nature the Divine Doctor quietly took up the gage of battle, the tide of conflict turned.  Slowly the numbed brain began to exert its force, the fluttering thready pulse grew calmer, and one day the dreamer awoke to the bitter consciousness of a renewal of all the galling burden of woes which the tireless law of compensation had for those long weeks mercifully loosed and lifted.

Although guarded with tender care by the faithful pair, who had followed her across the Atlantic, she convalesced almost imperceptibly, and out of her busy life two months fruitful alone in bodily pain glided away to the silent grey of the past.

Dimly conscious that days and weeks were creeping by unimproved, she retained in subsequent years only a dreamy reminiscence of the period dating from the moment when she essayed to utter the last words of Queen Katherine, words which ran zigzag, hither and thither like an electric thread through the leaden cloud of her delirium, to the hour, when with returning strength, keen goading thrusts from the unsheathed dagger of memory, told her that the Sleeping Furies had once more been aroused on the threshold of the temple of her life.

Noticing some rare hothouse flowers in a vase upon the table near her bed, Mrs. Waul hastened to explain to the invalid that every other day during her illness, bouquets had been brought to their hotel by the servant of some American gentleman, who was anxious to receive constant tidings of Mrs. Orme’s condition, adding that the physicians had forbidden her to keep the flowers in the sick-room, until all danger seemed passed.  No card had been attached, no name given, and by the sufferer none was needed.  Gazing at the superb heart’s-ease, whose white velvet petals were enamelled with scarlet, purple, and gold, the mockery stung her keenly, and with a groan she turned away, hiding her face on the pillow.  Hearts-ease from the man who had bruised, trampled, broken her heart?  She instructed Mrs. Waul to decline receiving the bouquet when next the messenger came, and to request him to assure his master that Madame Orme was fully conscious once more and wished the floral tribute discontinued.  During the tedious days of convalescence she contracted a cold that attacked her lungs, and foreboded congestion; and though yielding to medical treatment, it left her as souvenir, a. troublesome cough.

Her physician informed her that her whole nervous system had received a shock so severe that only perfect and prolonged rest of mind and freedom from all excitement could restore its healthful tone.  Interdicting sternly the thought of dramatic labour for at least a year, they urged her to seek a quiet retreat in Italy, or Southern France, as her lungs had already become somewhat involved.