the morning weak, unstrung, utterly
unequal to the day.

This conversation with Robin had also worried Garrett. The consolation
that he had frequently found in the reassuring comforts of his study
seemed utterly wanting to-night. The stillness irritated him; it
seemed stuffy, close, and he had an overmastering desire for a
companion. This desire he conquered, because he felt that it would be
scarcely dignified to search the byways of the house for a friend; but
he listened for steps, and fancied over and over again that he heard
the eagerly anticipated knock. But no one came, and he sat far into
the night, fancying strange sounds and trembling at the dark; and at
last fell asleep in his chair, and was discovered in an undignified
position on the floor in the early morning by the politely astonished
Benham.

But it was for Harry that the night most truly marked a crisis. He
spent it in vigil by the side of his father, and watched the heavy
passing of the hours, like grey solemn figures through the darkened
room. The faint glimmer of the electric light, heavily shaded, assumed
fantastic and portentous shapes and fleecy enormous shadows on the
white surface of the staring walls. Strange blue shadows glimmered
through the black caverns of the windows, and faint lights came from
beneath the door, and hovered on the ceiling like mysteriously moving
figures.

Sir Jeremy was perfectly still. Death had come to him very gently and
had laid its hand quietly upon him, with no violence or harshness. It
was only old age that had greeted him as a friend, and then with a
smile had persuaded him to go. He was unconscious now, but at any
moment his senses might return, and then he would ask for Harry. The
crisis might come at any time, and Harry must be there.

He felt no weariness; his brain was extraordinarily active and he
passed every incident since his return in review. It all seemed so
clear to him now; the inevitability of it all; and his own blindness in
escaping the meaning of it. It seemed now that he had known nothing of
the world at all three weeks ago. Then he had judged it from his own
knowledge--now he saw it in many lights; the point of view of Robin, of
Dahlia Feverel, of Clare, of Sir Jeremy, of Bethel, of Mary--he had
arrived at the great knowledge that Life could be absolutely right for
many different sorts of people--that the same life, like a globe of
flashing colours, could shine into every corn