The poor Beguines were quite uncertain what else they could do with her, but keep her till she grew well enough to be questioned; so she remained there in her little iron bed, tended by Lisette, unconscious and fever-stricken, while the lengthening days passed slowly over her aching head. Nearly a fortnight passed before she began mentally to drift back to consciousness, so terribly had all she had undergone of late--the collision at sea with the _Black Hound_ of Ostend, the nursing of her querulous father, her separation from Bevil Goring, and the worry incident to Cadbury's wooing, culminating in that night of terror in the streets--told upon her sensitive nature and delicate frame. A sweet picture she made, in her little white bed in the plain bare room of the kind Beguine, who never left her even for prayers, but said them by her side on her knees when the angelus or elevation bells rang. Among the huge, soft pillows the slight figure of Alison was half buried, yet the soft tints of her face and hair came out in a species of relief from them; the former was pale--very pale--and there were dark circles under the eyes; and the gentle young Beguine who watched her thought she had never looked on anyone so lovely, and often sat on a tabourette at the side of the couch, keeping her hand caressingly within her own, and counting the jewels in her rings one by one as a child might have done. 'She has a gentle expression in her eyes, such as I have often seen in those of a _Sœur de Charité_, and other nursing sisters,' was the dictum of the reverend mother of the establishment, who came from time to time to visit the fair waif who had been so suddenly cast upon their tenderness; and, truth to tell, there was a great touch of melancholy about the eyes and features of Alison Cheyne now, though certainly melancholy was by no means one of her characteristics naturally. The Beguines, we have said, are a religious order peculiar to Belgium, and totally unlike any other in so far that they are bound by no vows; they may return to the world whenever they please; but it is their boast that no sister has ever been known to quit the order after having once entered it. They attend to the sick in the Beguinage, and frequently go out as nurses in the hospitals. They were among the few religious communities not suppressed by Joseph II. or swept away by the furious torrent of the French Revolution. Each Beguinage--more especially in Ghent, where the sisterhood averages six hundred in number--is a species of little town by itself, with streets and squares, having gates, and sometimes surrounded by a moat as well as a wall, especially at Bruges. The sisters live generally in separate houses, on the doors of which are inscribed, not the name of the occupant, but of some saint adopted as her patron or protectress; and many of them are persons of rank and wealth; hence it was in the private house of Sister Lisette that Alison found herself now.