She was lying in her own little room at The Ship, and Mrs. Peck, with
motherly kindness writ large on her comely, plump face, was bending over
her with a cup of steaming broth in her hand.

Columbine gazed at her with a bewildered sense of having slept too long.

Mrs. Peck nodded at her cheerily. "There, my dear! You're better, I can
see. A fine time you've given us. I thought as I should never see your
bright eyes again."

Columbine put forth a trembling hand with a curious feeling that it did
not belong to her at all. "Have I been ill?" she said.

Mrs. Peck nodded again cheerily. "Why, it's more than a week you've been
lying here, and how I have worrited about you! Prostration following
severe shock was what the doctor called it, but it looked to me more
like a touch of brain fever. But there, you're better! Drink this like a
good girl, and you'll feel better still!"

Meekly, with the docility of great weakness, Columbine swallowed the
proffered nourishment. She wanted to recall all that had happened, but
her brain felt too clogged to serve her. She could only lie and gaze and
gaze at a little vase of wild white roses that faced her upon the
mantelpiece. Somehow those roses seemed to her to play an oddly
important part in her awakening.

"Where did they come from?" she suddenly asked.

Mrs. Peck glanced up indifferently. "They're just those little common
things that grow with the pinks on the cliff," she said.