e said. "She is going to get well."

"Confound it!" I growled, under my breath. "How do you know?"

"The blue wall," she answered with a sneer.

"Bah!" said I, starting up the stairs. "We shall see."

As I pushed open the door, I observed that the nurse had procured a red
silk shade to screen the single electric lamp on the table. The yellow
rays were changed to a pink, reflected on the wall, sending their rosy
lights into the depths of that bottomless blue; the breaking of a clear
day after a spring rain has no softer mingling of colors. For a moment I
looked at the chart, then with new hope turned toward Virginia herself.

Either the new tints diffused by the lamp deceived the eye, or the
little girl's pale skin had in fact been warmed by a new response from
the springs of life. She was sleeping quietly, her innocent face turned
a little toward me and in the faint, illusive smile at her mouth, and in
the relaxation of her beautiful hands, I read the confirmation of Miss
Peters's prophecy. I, too, believed just then that Virginia would not
die, and that, as so rarely happens in this disease, her recovery would
be complete.

"It is a wild night," said the bony nurse when I had tiptoed out of the
room.

She seemed to be wishing to draw from me an opinion on the extraordinary
rally the child had made. That was her way; she always invited
discussion of a subject by comments about something wholly irrelevant.

"We shall see," I answered again. "A relapse might be fatal.
To-morrow--we shall see."

"It is raining hard," she said as she turned the latch for me.

"Yes," said I, "and the treatment till then must be the same. Who
knows--"

"Who knows?" she repeated.

A blast of wind and water and the closing of the door seemed to deny an
answer. I found myself on the steps again, looking into the staring eyes
of my car, and, with a sharp jump of my thoughts, wondering how we were
to accomplish the work we had come to do. I descended, however, and
when I had reached the door of my limousine, I saw Estabrook's drawn
face pressed close to the glass. It was the sight of him that gave me an
idea; it was his first words that, for a moment, drove it from my mind.

"Look! Look!" he said to me. "Look at her window!"

I had merely noticed that a new, bright light shone there; now, in a
quick glance over my shoulder, I saw a shadow on the curtain--the shadow
of a figure standing with its arms extended above a head, thrown ba