She had perversely chosen and doggedly stuck to a housemaid’s bedroom, because it was nearest to Catherine’s room. She had insisted on putting in for herself the few pins which her holland gown required. She was so enlivened by her work in the sick-room that she came out of it looking as fresh as a daisy and as gay as a lark. When she had an hour to spare, or wanted a little variety, she took it in running about the town to rout out sickness among the miserable wretches who could not afford a nurse of any kind, and then in seeking to trace the mischief to its origin and destroy its sheet anchors of poverty and dirt. She had caused the two doctors’ hair to stand on end, forced the vicar to tear what hair was left on his head, and all but driven the youngest and most enthusiastic of the curates to hang himself. In fine, the Sister had imparted to Mrs. Hilliard the remarkable information that she looked on this apparently lowest department of her profession as in fact the highest, and had been guilty of selecting it for herself. She had only consented to come down and nurse so swell a patient as Catherine because she was in extremity, and because the Sister had some special acquaintance with nervous disorders and skill in treating them. Catherine had opened her eyes at the princess in disguise, of course penetrating the disguise, from the first moment she saw her. The sick woman had come under the spell of the nurse’s vitality until everybody who could make a diagnosis said the one craze would cast out the other, the craze of work would expel the craze of lethargy, the craze of social regeneration would break the back of individual despondency and despair. Thus Mrs. Hilliard wrote, and Oliver was free to think over the news. Catherine alive, in health, awakened from her long unhealthy sleep with its haunting nightmares! Catherine loosed from her grave-clothes! Catherine informed of the riches of life, stretching out her hands to take them for herself and share them with others! If he could but see and speak with Catherine now, would she not understand him, and feel with him at last, whatever came of it? But to see Catherine, with whom all was well, Oliver must abandon Fan in her tribulation, when, in the light of a fresh trial hanging over her, she had more need of his help than ever. Oliver could not find it in his heart to quit his post under such conditions, though it was also in his heart to writhe and fret at what might have been, and the possible forfeiture of his own chance of human happiness. But he was also capable of feeling thankful that it was—as he had every reason to believe—only his own happiness, not Catherine’s—above all, not her well-being, which might be at stake. He was not put to the torture of having to choose between Fan and Catherine in this supreme sense. CHAPTER XXVII. THE LAST PENNY PAID.