ummerhay's mother, should hear a whisper if he could help it.
At the door, he murmured:

"I don't know whether my girl will get through, or what she will do
after. When Fate hits, she hits too hard. And you! Good-bye."

Lady Summerhay pressed his outstretched hand.

"Good-bye," she said, in a strangled voice. "I wish you--good-bye."
Then, turning abruptly, she hastened away.

Winton went back to his guardianship upstairs.

In the days that followed, when Gyp, robbed of memory, hung between life
and death, Winton hardly left her room, that low room with creepered
windows whence the river could be seen, gliding down under the pale
November sunshine or black beneath the stars. He would watch it,
fascinated, as one sometimes watches the relentless sea. He had snatched
her as by a miracle from that snaky river.

He had refused to have a nurse. Aunt Rosamund and Mrs. Markey were
skilled in sickness, and he could not bear that a strange person should
listen to those delirious mutterings. His own part of the nursing was
just to sit there and keep her secrets from the others--if he could.
And he grudged every minute away from his post. He would stay for hours,
with eyes fixed on her face. No one could supply so well as he just that
coherent thread of the familiar, by which the fevered, without knowing
it, perhaps find their way a little in the dark mazes where they wander.
And he would think of her as she used to be--well and happy--adopting
unconsciously the methods of those mental and other scientists whom he
looked upon as quacks.

He was astonished by the number of inquiries, even people whom he had
considered enemies left cards or sent their servants, forcing him to the
conclusion that people of position are obliged to reserve their human
kindness for those as good as dead. But the small folk touched him daily
by their genuine concern for her whose grace and softness had won their
hearts. One morning he received a letter forwarded from Bury Street.

"DEAR MAJOR WINTON,

"I have read a paragraph in the paper about poor Mr. Summerhay's death.
And, oh, I feel so sorry for her! She was so good to me; I do feel it
most dreadfully. If you think she would like to know how we all feel for
her, you would tell her, wouldn't you? I do think it's cruel.

"Very faithfully yours,

"DAPHNE WING."

So they knew Summerhay's name--he had not somehow expected that. He did
not answer, not knowing what to say.

During those