under his breath.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

For two days Brigit Mead remained in her room, refusing to see anyone.
Tommy, who had reached the period when convalescents sleep most of the
time, was told that she was resting, and that he must be very good and
eat a great deal, with a view to surprising her by his progress when she
reappeared.

But the girl was not resting.

Up and down the two rooms she paced, day and night, her face set, her
hands clenched, talking aloud to herself sometimes, sometimes silent,
always thinking, thinking, thinking of Joyselle.

Had he ceased to love her, or was it merely a pose, or--ten thousand
theories occurred to her, to drive her perilously near madness in her
solitude. Things he had done, words he had said, characteristics she had
observed in him, all these things flashed into her mind, upsetting and
confirming each and every theory with an utter lack of logic, but with
pitiless conclusiveness.

And the longer she thought the more hopeless things grew. Theo himself
she dismissed with furious impatience; his letters remained unopened, an
affectionate wire of congratulation on Tommy's improvement she did not
answer. He and everyone else were swept aside by the flood of emotional
analysis regarding Joyselle that, in its headlong course, threatened to
carry her reason with it.

"If I had been married," she thought over and over again with cruel
shrewdness, "things--would have been different, and then he _could_ not
have escaped."

She wrote to Joyselle long letters full of incoherent self-accusations,
and made appeals for pity, but she knew that he would not answer her,
and so burned the letters.

She could not eat; did not even try, and the little sleep she got from
sheer exhaustion, after tramping up and down for hours, was heavy and
unrestful. Lady Kingsmead came to her door once or twice, but was not
allowed to enter, and went away unprotesting. And then, the third
morning, Dr. Long insisted on seeing her.

"Humph! Tired, are you? You look it. Tommy is going to Margate
to-morrow. You had better go too."

"Is my mother going?"

"No. Nurse is taking him. It will do him good--and you. Is anything
specific the matter?"

She looked at him and shook her head. "I am tired," she repeated.

"Very well. I'll give you some phosphites--and you had better go for a
walk. You need air."

The old man bustled away, and Brigit, after a few minutes' reflection,
went to her mother's