the distinctions and dignities of that
period were real too, just as uncontrovertible a contribution to her
knowledge of men and of things, just as vital an element in her
experience, as chaos let loose on her now. The one in no degree
invalidated the truth or actuality of the other.

But to keep this in mind, to remember it all the time, while imagination
galloped with fever brought on by chill and exposure, and reason
wandered, losing touch with plain commonsense through the moral shock she
had sustained, was difficult to the point of impossibility. She needed a
witness, visible and material, to the fact of those former happier
conditions; and found it, quaintly enough, in the untidy person and
humorous, quarrelsome, brick-dust coloured face--as much of the said
face, that is, as was discoverable under the thick stiff growth of sandy
hair surrounding and invading it--of the Irish doctor, as he sat by her
bed, ministered to and soothed her with reverent and whimsical delicacy.

As long as he was there, her room retained its normal, pleasant and
dainty aspect. All Damaris' little personal effects and treasures
adorning dressing and writing-tables, the photographs and ornaments upon
the mantelshelf, her books, the prints and pictures upon the walls--even
the white dimity curtains and covers, trellised with small faded pink and
blue roses--seemed to smile upon her, kindly and confiding. They wanted
to be nice, to console and encourage her--McCabe holding them in place
and in active good-will towards her, somehow, with his large freckled,
hairy-backed hands. But let him go from the room, let him leave her, and
they turned wicked, behaving as they had behaved throughout the past
rather dreadful night and adding to the general chaos by tormenting
tricks and distortions of their own.

The beloved photographs of her father, in particular, were cruel. They
grew inordinately large, stepped out of their frames, and stalked to and
fro in troops and companies. The charcoal drawing of him--done last year
by that fine artist, James Colthurst, as a study for the portrait he was
to paint--hanging between the two western windows, at right angles to her
bed where she could always see it, proved the worst offender. It did not
take the floor, it is true, but remained in its frame upon the wall. Yet
it too came alive, and looked full at her, compelling her attention,
dominating, commanding her; while, slowly, deliberately it changed, the