"I'll lie still, and be very quiet, but I can't promise to sleep." She did sleep, though, in spite of herself, for when next she turned her head to see if the hands of the clock had moved at all, she found her husband sitting beside her, smiling at her. "Why, however did you get here, dear? I never saw you come--nor heard a sound." "I reckon I must have growed up out of the floor," said Peter, bending to kiss her. "Well, my girl, this isn't where I expected to see 'ee when I came back--but I'm so thankful to find you at all, I can't think of anything else." "Oh, my dear, I'm so glad you've come," she cried, clinging to him passionately. "I never thought we should meet again in this world. Oh! Peter--what we've been through! Oh! That night! That awful night!" He patted her soothingly, holding her hand in his. "I know, I know--but you must try not to dwell on it. If you throw yourself back, I shan't be allowed to come again." Lucy put a great restraint upon herself. "They've told you:--poor granny is dead?" she whispered, but more calmly. "Yes--they've told me. I believe I know the worst now. I've one bit of comfort, though, for all of us. I've just seen the doctor, and he says she was dead before the fire reached her. She must have died almost as soon as she lay down." Then Lucy broke down and wept from sheer relief. "Oh, thank God," she said, fervently, "for taking her to Himself, and sparing her the horrors of that awful night. Thank Him, too, for Mona's sake. The thought that granny perished in the fire because no one reached her in time would have been the worst of all the thoughts weighing on her mind. She will be spared that now." At that moment, though, Mona was troubled by no thoughts at all. She lay in her bed in the ward just as they had placed her there hours before, absolutely unconscious. If it had not been for the faint beating of her heart she might have been taken for dead. Doctors came and looked at her and went away again, the day nurses went off duty, and the night nurses came on and went off again, but still she showed no sign of life. With her head and her arms swathed in bandages, she lay with her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted. It was not until the following day, the day Granny Barnes was laid to rest in the little churchyard on the hill, that she opened her eyes on this world once more, and glanced about her, dazed and bewildered. "Where?" she began. But before she had finished her sentence, her eyes closed. This time, though, it was not unconsciousness, but sleep that she drifted off into, and it was not until afternoon that she opened her eyes once more. "Where am I?" She completed her question this time. Then, at the sight of a nurse in uniform, a look of alarm crept into her eyes. "Where are you, dear? Why, here in hospital, being taken care of, and your mother is here, too." "Mother." "Yes, and we are looking after you so well! You are both better already."