ve been days
or weeks, he did not know; and then came the morning when he seemed to
awaken from a long disturbed sleep, full of terrible dreams, with a full
realisation of his position.

He looked about him, and there were people in beds on either side, while
a row of windows started from opposite to him, and went on right and
left.

At last he saw the face of the woman whom he felt that he had seen
leaning over him in his dream.

She came to his bedside.

"Well?" she said, with a pleasant smile.

"Is this a hospital?" he said eagerly.

"Yes."

"And I have met with some accident--hurt?"

"No," was the reply; "not an accident. You have been ill."

"Ill? How came I here?"

He looked wildly in the calm soft face before him, and behind it there
seemed to be a dense mental mist which he could not penetrate. There
was the nurse; and as he lay, it seemed to him that he could think as
far as their presence there, and no further.

"You had better wait till the doctor has been round."

"If you don't tell me what all this means," he said impetuously, "you
will make me worse."

She laid her hand upon his forehead, to find that it was perfectly cool,
and he caught her fingers in his as she was drawing them away. "Don't
keep me in suspense," he said piteously.

"Well, I will tell you. The police brought you here a fortnight ago.
They found you lying in a doorway, drenched with water and fast asleep.
You were quite delirious, and you have been very ill."

"Ill? Yes, I feel so weak," he muttered, as he struggled to penetrate
the mist which seemed to shut him in, till the nurse's next words gave
him a clue to the way out.

"We do not even know who you are; only that they suppose you to be a
sailor who has just left his ship."

"Heath--Mark Heath," he said quickly.

"Ah! And your friends? We want to communicate with them."

"My friends! No; it would frighten her, poor little girl!"

"The cause for alarm is passed," said the nurse gravely.

"Yes. Ah! I begin to recollect now," he said. "Send to Miss Heath--my
sister--19 Upper Brunswick Avenue, Bloomsbury."

"Yes; and now lie still."

The nurse left him, and he lay thinking, and gradually finding in the
mist the pieces of the puzzle of his past adventure, till he seemed to
have them nearly all there.

Then came the doctor with a few words of encouragement.

"You'll do now," he said. "Narrow escape of losing your hair, young
fellow. Next time