The old doctor had given it to her, and that was why she would not let it grow old before she was old herself.

Tommy opened it now with trembling hands and looked at the little bits of Grizel on it: the beautiful stitching with which she had coaxed the slits to close again; the one patch, so artful that she had clapped her hands over it.

And he fell on his knees and kissed these little bits of Grizel, and called her "beloved," and cried to his gods to give him one more chance.
"I woke up." It was all that she had said.

It was Grizel's excuse for inconveniencing him.

She had said it apologetically and as if she did not quite know how she came to be there herself.