‘You are a Frenchwoman, are you not?’ he asked, the weakness of his voice startling him a little. ‘_Mais si_,’ she answered, gently. He tried to get her to talk, but she answered him only in monosyllables. He tried to see her face, but the position in which she held her head always prevented him. ‘Perhaps her cap is the prettiest thing about her, and she would rather show that than her face,’ he thought. Even that brief conversation exhausted him, and he fell asleep again. Those weary hours of delirious wakefulness had left him long arrears of sleep to make up. He slept on till dusk, and Dr. Saunders, finding him locked in that deep slumber, pronounced him out of danger. ‘Our medicines have never been able to touch him,’ he said frankly. ‘It has been an unaided struggle between nature and disease. I ought not to say unaided, though,’ he added, apologetically, to the little nursing sister in the Breton cap. ‘Your care has been a very powerful assistance.’ The little woman thanked him effusively in her broken English. The taller nurse spoke only French, and as little of that as possible. When Cyril awoke again, just before nightfall, the small nurse was sitting by his bed. ‘Where is the other?’ he asked. ‘Gone.’ ‘Gone?’ ‘Yes. You are now much better--on the high road to recovery. You no longer want two nurses. My companion has gone home.’ ‘She is wanted for some other case, perhaps.’ ‘No doubt she soon will be.’ ‘To what order do you belong?’ ‘To a community of nursing sisters.’ ‘In Brittany?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘What part of Brittany?’ ‘We never talk about ourselves. It is one of the rules of our order. We come and go like the wind.’ ‘But how was it that you came to me? Who sent for you?’ ‘We were not sent for. We happened to hear of your illness--and we knew you were a good man. It was our duty to come and nurse you.’ ‘What me?--a Protestant?’ ‘We are not sectarian. We go wherever we are wanted.’ ‘But how do you--Breton nuns--come to be in England?’ ‘We are not nuns. We are a nursing sisterhood, bound by no vows. We heard of the pest raging in this town, and came here to be useful.’ ‘You are very good people,’ said Cyril. ‘I am sorry the other sister is gone. I should like to have talked to her, but this morning she would answer me only in monosyllables.’ ‘It is not good for you to talk, and it is one of our rules to talk as little as possible.’