"Have I been ill?" she asked.
"Yes, my dear," returned Ulrika softly, overjoyed, yet afraid at the girl's returning intelligence. "Very ill. But you feel better now, don't you?"
Thelma sighed, and raising her little wasted hand, examined it curiously. Her wedding and betrothal rings were so loose on her finger that they would have fallen off had they been held downwards. She seemed surprised at this, but made no remark. For some time she remained quiet, steadfastly gazing at Ulrika, and evidently trying to make out who she was. Presently she spoke again.
"I remember everything now," she said, slowly. "I am at home, at the Altenfjord—and I know how I came—and also why I came." Here her lips quivered. "And I shall see my father no more, for he has gone—and I am all—all alone in the world!" She paused—then added, "Do you think I am dying? If so, I am very glad!"
"Hush my dear!" said Ulrika. "You mustn't talk in that way. Your husband is coming presently—" she broke off suddenly, startled at the look of utter despair in Thelma's eyes.
"You are wrong," she replied wearily. "He will not come—he cannot! He does not want me any more!"
And two large tears rolled slowly down her pale cheeks. Ulrika wondered, but forebore to pursue the subject further, fearing to excite or distress her,—and contented herself for the present with attending to her patient's bodily needs. She went to the fire, and began to pour out some nourishing soup, which she always had there in readiness,—and while she was thus engaged, Thelma's brain cleared more and more,—till with touching directness, and a new hope flushing her face, she asked softly and beseechingly for her child. "I forgot!" she said simply and sweetly. "Of course I am not alone any more. Do give me my baby—I am much better—nearly well—and I should like to kiss it."
Ulrika stood mute, taken aback by this demand. She dared not tell her the truth—she feared its effect on the sensitive mind that had so lately regained its balance. But while she hesitated, Thelma instinctively guessed all she strove to hide.
"It is dead!" she cried. "Dead!—and I never knew!"
And, burying her golden head in her pillows, she broke into a passion of convulsive sobbing. Ulrika grew positively desperate at the sound,—what was she to do? Everything seemed to go against her—she was inclined to cry herself. She embraced the broken-hearted girl, and tried to soothe her, but in vain. The long delirium and subsequent weakness,—combined with the secret trouble on her mind,—had deprived poor Thelma of all resisting power, and she wept on and on in Ulrika's arms till nature was exhausted, and she could weep no longer. Then she lay motionless, with closed eyes, utterly drained in body and spirit, scarcely breathing, and, save for a shivering moan that now and then escaped her, she seemed almost insensible. Ulrika watched her with darkening, meditative brows,—she listened to the rush of the storm-wind without,—it was past eleven o'clock at night. She began to count on her fingers—it was the sixteenth day since the birth of the child,—sixteen days exactly since she had written to Sir Philip Errington, informing him of his wife's danger—and the danger was not yet past. Thinking over all that had happened, and the apparent hopelessness of the case, she suddenly took a strange idea into her head. Retiring to a distant corner, she dropped on her knees.