For a week--of course I did not know it was a week then--my memories consist only of a series of flashes like the memory of the hours immediately following the accident. I remember people talking, but not what they said; I remember her voice, or I think I do, and the touch of her hand on my forehead. And afterward, other voices, Hephzy's in particular. But when I came to myself, weak and shaky, but to remain myself for good and all, Hephzy--the real Hephzy--was in the room with me. Even then they would not let me ask questions. Another day dragged by before I was permitted to do that. Then Hephzy told me I had a cracked rib and a variety of assorted bruises, that I had suffered slight concussion of the brain, and that my immediate job was to behave myself and get well. “Land sakes!” she exclaimed, “there was a time when I thought you never was goin' to get well. Hour after hour I've set here and listened to your gabblin' away about everything under the sun and nothin' in particular, as crazy as a kitten in a patch of catnip, and thought and thought, what should I do, what SHOULD I do. And now I KNOW what I'm goin' to do. I'm goin' to keep you in that bed till you're strong and well enough to get out of it, if I have to sit on you to hold you down. And I'm no hummin'-bird when it comes to perchin', either.” She had received the telegram which Frances sent and had come from Interlaken post haste. “And I don't know,” she declared, “which part of that telegram upset me most--what there was in it or the name signed at the bottom of it. HER name! I couldn't believe my eyes. I didn't stop to believe 'em long. I just came. And then I found you like this.” “Was she here?” I asked. “Who--Frances! My, yes, she was here. So pale and tired lookin' that I thought she was goin' to collapse. But she wouldn't give in to it. She told me all about how it happened and what the doctor said and everything. I didn't pay much attention to it then. All I could think of was you. Oh, Hosy! my poor boy! I--I--” “There! there!” I broke in, gently. “I'm all right now, or I'm going to be. You will have the quahaug on your hands for a while longer. But,” returning to the subject which interested me most, “what else did she tell you? Did she tell you how I met her--and where?” “Why, yes. She's singin' somewhere--she didn't say where exactly, but it is in some kind of opera-house, I judged. There's a perfectly beautiful opera-house a little ways from here on the Avenue de L'Opera, right by the Boulevard des Italiens, though there's precious few Italians there, far's I can see. And why an opera is a l'opera I--” “Wait a moment, Hephzy. Did she tell you of our meeting? And how I found her?”