For three days the figure in the loose black gown was constantly at Cyril’s bedside. He heard the little woman telling her beads in the dead of night. If she were no nun she was at any rate a staunch Roman Catholic; but she did not endeavour to convert him to her own creed. She was a modest, unobtrusive little woman; but during those three days she very often broke the rule of her order, and talked to the patient a good deal. She talked of Brittany, which she knew thoroughly, and sometimes of modern French literature, which she knew better than she ought to have done as a member of a religious sisterhood. On the fourth day she was gone, and another figure, dressed in black, with neat white cap and apron, was by Cyril’s bedside. The face of this watcher was not hidden. He knew it well, a homely English face that brought back the thought of his work in the courts and back streets of Bridford. ‘Mrs. Joyce,’ he exclaimed. ‘Have you turned nurse?’ ‘What more blessed privilege can I have, sir, than to take care of you? I owe you what is a great deal more to me than my own life, the life of my beloved son. Oh, sir, if he ever comes to be a Milton or a Shakespeare, the world will bless you for your goodness, as I do now.’ Cyril smiled at her enthusiasm. Perhaps every mother whose son writes obscure verses in doubtful English believes with Mrs. Joyce that she has produced a Milton. ‘I should have come before, sir, if the two ladies hadn’t been here. But they were such good nurses I didn’t want to interfere with them.’ ‘Do you know where they came from, or why they came?’ ‘No, indeed, Mr. Culverhouse. They were foreigners, and I suppose they came from foreign parts.’ ‘Neither of my doctors sent for them, I believe.’ ‘No, sir. Dr. Saunders told me they came and went like spirits, but he was wishful there were more like them.’ ‘And your son is really recovered?’ ‘Yes, sir. It is a most wonderful cure. He rallied that night, and was up and about at the end of the week. To both of us it seemed like a miracle. I have read the gospel about the widow’s son every night and morning after my prayers, and I have read it two or three times to Emmanuel. Oh, sir, I hope and believe you have wrought a double cure. I think my son’s heart is turned to holy things. He has read his Bible very often lately. I have watched him, and I think he is beginning to find out that there is truth and comfort to be found in it.’ ‘He cannot read the gospel long without making that discovery. Young men are too apt to form their judgment of the Bible from what other people have written about it. When they go to the fountain head they find their mistake.’ Cyril was not satisfied till he had questioned Dr. Saunders and Dr. Bolling, the latter of whom had come to see him daily, without any fee, about the two French nurses. But neither of these could tell him more than he knew already.