"You are alive." Her mind as yet could only work in a single groove.
"Why did you do that ?" she whispered.
"Do what ?" "Bite your nail off!" "It was in my way.

I wished to cut open your dress at the waist.

You were collapsed, almost dead, I thought, and I wanted to unfasten your corsets." Her color came back with remarkable rapidity.

From all the rich variety of the English tongue few words could have been selected of such restorative effect.
She tried to assume a sitting posture, and instinctively her hands traveled to her disarranged costume.
"How ridiculous!" she said, with a little note of annoyance in her voice, which sounded curiously hollow.

But her brave spirit could not yet command her enfeebled frame.