e
down, but she didn't feel it possible to move out of her lethargy. She
was not only sleepy but very tired. Yet the whole matter, she knew, was
that this undramatic homecoming had deadened all her expectations. She
had reckoned upon a brother ready to be called brother; she had meant to
devote herself to him and see Anne devote herself, with an equal mind.
And here was a gaunt creature with a sodden skin who didn't want
anything they could do. She heard him say "Good-night." There was only
one good-night, which must have been to the colonel, though Anne was
standing by, and then she heard Anne, in a little kind voice, asking her
father if he wouldn't have something hot before he went to bed. No, he
said. He should sleep. His voice sounded exhilarated, with a thrill in
it of some even gay relief, not at all like the voice that had said
good-night. And Anne lighted his candle for him and watched him up the
stairs, and Lydia felt curiously outside it all, as if they were playing
the play without her. Anne came in then and looked solicitously at the
guttered candles of which one was left with a winding-sheet, like a
tipsy host that had drunk the rest under the table, and appeared to be
comforting the others for having made such a spectacle of themselves to
no purpose. Lydia was so sleepy now that there seemed to be several
Annes and she heard herself saying fractiously:

"Oh, let's go to bed."

Through the short night she dreamed confusedly, always a dream about
offering Farvie a supper tray, and his saying: "No, I never mean to eat
again." And then the tray itself seemed to be the trouble, and it had to
be filled all over. But nobody wanted the food.

In the early morning she awoke with the sun full upon her, for she had
been too tired the night before to close a blind. She got out of bed and
ran to the window. The night had been so confusing that she felt in very
much of a hurry to see the day. Her room overlooked the orchard,
outlined by its high red wall. For the first time, the wall seemed to
have a purpose. A man in shirt and trousers was walking fast inside it,
and while she looked he began to run. It was Jeffrey, the real Jeffrey,
she felt sure; not the Jeffrey of last night who had been so far from
her old conception of him that she had to mould him all over now to fit
him into the orchard scene. He was running in a foolish, half-hearted
way; but suddenly he seemed to call upon his will and set his elbows and
r