Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/292

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
278
SHIANA

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A LAPSE OF MEMORY.

When he woke out of his sleep he found himself repeating those words which he had left unfinished when he was talking to the barefooted woman on the hill.

"I give thanks to the Eternal Father Who created you!—and to Jesus Christ Who redeemed you!—and to the Holy Ghost Who sanctified you!"

He imagined he was still lying on the moss-plot, and he thought she was there beside him, but without his being able to see her. When he moved his hand and found the bed-clothes on him he was filled with wonder. A still greater wonder seized him when he looked about him and saw the walls and roof-timbers of the house. He began to meditate and to think and to reason in his mind to try to make out how he had come in from the hill. He could not understand the thing at all. He looked toward the window. He saw a person over near the window. It was a woman. Moreover, she was a nurse—the same nurse that had been taking care of Grey Dermot when he was ill! Shiana's wonder and amazement reached their height when he saw her. He did not know in the world what had brought her there, nor what had brought himself where he was, whereas it was outside on the hill, on the moss-plot, he had lain down to sleep in the beginning of the previous night, as he thought. What had brought him in from the hill? Or if he had come in of himself how was