He stopped to consider, and looked back to see if the owner of the face was still in sight. Yes, there she was, walking briskly along the narrow pavement, threading her way dexterously through the crowd, a little woman, neatly dressed in a black silk gown and a gray mantle. Dimly, as in a dream, did he remember that face. It must have been a memory of long ago, he thought. And then in a moment he recalled the scene to which that face belonged--his sick room at Bridford--the old-fashioned wainscoted bedroom, with its dull brown walls, four-post bedstead and drab hangings--the weariness of fever and delirium--the bright black eyes peering at him from the shadow of the nun’s white hood. ‘It is my little nurse,’ he said to himself, ‘the elder of those two good women.’ He turned and followed the lady in the gray mantle. It was strange to see her in a dress so different from her nun-like habit, but then she had told him that she belonged to no conventual order. Once having given her the start, it was not easy to gain upon her, she tripped along so briskly, and the street here close to the market was crowded. Cyril was almost breathless when he caught her. ‘Pray, Madame, do not deny yourself to one who is deeply indebted to you,’ he said, hat in hand, gasping a little. ‘When you passed me just now I recognised you as one I well remembered, but I could not for the moment recall the circumstances of our acquaintance. I have so longed to see you again, to be able to thank you.’ The little Frenchwoman looked at him with a most innocent stare. ‘Monsieur deceives himself,’ she said in her own language. ‘I have not the honour of his acquaintance.’ ‘Nay, Madame, you cannot forget one who owes you so much--perhaps life itself. You cannot have forgotten your fever patient at Bridford.’ ‘Bridford,’ echoed the lady, ‘what is that?’ ‘Oh, Madame, you are trifling with me. It is not possible I can be mistaken. Do you not belong to a nursing sisterhood, a band of holy women, who, bound by no religious order, go about doing good, attending their ailing fellow-creatures, without fee or reward?’ ‘No, sir, I do not. I never even heard of such a sisterhood,’ replied the lady, resolutely. ‘I must ask you to pardon me, then. But it is a most wonderful likeness. I am deeply disappointed,’ said Cyril, allowing the lady to pass, with a respectful bow. He was more than disappointed, he was mystified. In spite of the lady’s assertion he could not bring himself to believe that hers was not the face which he had seen by his sick bed in those long hours of languor and prostration, when he had nothing to do but watch his nurse’s kindly countenance, and listen to her friendly talk. Yet, if this was his nurse, why should she deny herself to him? Was that one of the rules of her order? Was the order a kind of masonic association in good works?--a secret band of holy women, who disavowed their benevolent deeds after they were done? CHAPTER XXII.