closed eyelids, and not a
sound in my ears but the thin carolling of a bird.

When I opened my eyes I was in bed in a room that was strange to me. It
was a little like the Reverend Mother's room in Rome, having pictures of
the Saints on the walls, and a large figure of the Sacred Heart over the
mantelpiece; but there was a small gas fire, and a canary singing in a
gilded cage that hung in front of the window.

I was trying to collect my senses in order to realize where I was when
Sister Mildred's kind face, in her white wimple and gorget, leaned over
me, and she said, with a tender smile, "You are awake now, my child?"

Then memory came rushing back, and though the immediate past was still
like a stormy dream I seemed to remember everything.

"Is it true that I saw. . . ."

"Yes," said Mildred.

"Then he was not shipwrecked?"

"That was a false report. Within a month or two the newspapers had
contradicted it."

"Where is he?" I asked, rising from my pillow.

"Hush! Lie quiet. You are not to excite yourself. I must call the
doctor."

Mildred was about to leave the room, but I could not let her go.

"Wait! I must ask you something more."

"Not now, my child. Lie down."

"But I must. Dear Sister, I must. There is somebody else."

"You mean the baby," said Mildred, in a low voice.

"Yes."

"She has been found, and taken to the country, and is getting better
rapidly. So lie down, and be quiet," said Mildred, and with a long
breath of happiness I obeyed.

A moment afterwards I heard her speaking to somebody over the telephone
(saying I had recovered consciousness and was almost myself again), and
then some indistinct words came hack in the thick telephone voice like
that of a dumb man shouting down a tunnel, followed by sepulchral peals
of merry laughter.

"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 brough