rel.
Lay her down, then, and let me have a look at her."

He had his little case of medicines, and he hunted for something to bring
her back to consciousness. Pip, pale and shaken, folded his coat under
her head and chafed her hands.

Presently life seemed to sweep through her body. She shivered and moved.

Her eyes came open. "What happened?"

"You fell from your horse. Meade found you."

There were no bones broken, but the shock had been great. She lay very
still and white against Pip's arm.

Richard closed his medicine case and rose. He stood looking down at her.

"Better, old lady?"

"Yes, Dicky."

He spoke a little awkwardly. "I'll ride down if you don't mind, and come
back for you in Meade's car." His eyes did not meet hers.

As he plunged over the hill on his heavy old horse, her puzzled gaze
followed him. Then she gave a queer little laugh. "Is he running away
from me, Pip?"

"I told him you were--mine," the big man burst out.

"You told him? Oh, Pip, what did he say?"

"That this was not the time to talk about it."

She lay very still thinking it out. Then she turned on his arm. "Good old
Pip," she said. He drew her up to him, and she said it again, with that
queer little laugh, "Good old Pip, you're the best ever. And all this
time I have been looking straight over your blessed old head at--Dicky."

CHAPTER XXIV

_In Which St. Michael Finds Love in a Garden._

THE flowers in Marie-Louise's bowl were lilacs. And Marie-Louise, sitting
up in bed, writing verses, was in pale mauve. Her windows were wide open,
and the air from the river, laden with fragrance, swept through the room.

The big house had been closed all winter. Austin had elected to spend the
season in Florida, and had taken all of his household with him, including
Anne. He had definitely retired from practice when Richard left him. "I
can't carry it on alone, and I don't want to break in anybody else," he
had said, and had turned the whole thing over to one of his colleagues.

But April had brought him back to "Rose Acres" in time for the lilacs,
and Marie-Louise, uplifted by the fact that Geoffrey Fox was at that very
moment finishing his book in the balcony room, had decided that lilacs in
the silver bowl should express the ecstatic state of her mind.

Anne, coming in at noon, asked, "What are you writing?"

"_Vers libre._ This is called, 'To Dr. Dicky, Dinging.'"

"What a subject, and you call it poetry?"

"Why