ices, the rustling and calling shadowiness of
subconsciousness--in this quiet sunlight of reality. The clouds had
broken, or had been withdrawn like a veil from the October skies. One
thought alone was his refuge; one face alone haunted him with its
peace; one remembrance soothed him--Alice. Through all his scattered
and purposeless arguments he strove to remember her voice, the
loving-kindness of her eyes, her untroubled confidence.

In the afternoon he got up and dressed himself. He could not bring
himself to stand before the glass and deliberately shave. He even smiled
at the thought of playing the barber to that lean chin. He dressed by
the fireplace.

'I couldn't rest,' he told Sheila, when she presently came in on one
of her quiet, cautious, heedful visits; 'and one tires of reading even
Quain in bed.'

'Have you found anything?' she inquired politely.

'Oh yes,' said Lawford wearily; 'I have discovered that infinitely
worse things are infinitely commoner. But that there's nothing quite so
picturesque.'

'Tell me,' said Sheila, with refreshing naivete. 'How does it feel? does
it even in the slightest degree affect your mind?'

He turned his back and looked up at his broad gilt portrait for
inspiration. 'Practically, not at all,' he said hollowly. 'Of course,
one's nerves--that fellow Danton--when one's overtired. You have'--his
voice, in spite of every effort, faintly quavered--'YOU haven't noticed
anything? My mind?'

'Me? Oh dear, no! I never was the least bit observant; you know
that, Arthur. But apart from that, and I hope you will not think me
unsympathetic--but don't you think we must sooner or later be thinking
of what's to be done? At present, though I fully agree with Mr Bethany
as to the wisdom of hushing this unhappy business up as long as
possible, at least from the gossiping outside world, still we are only
standing still. And your malady, dear, I suppose, isn't. You WILL help
me, Arthur? You will try and think? Poor Alice!'

'What about Alice?'

'She mopes, dear, rather. She cannot, of course, quite understand why
she must not see her father, and yet his not being, or, for the matter
of that, even if he was, at death's door.'

'At death's door,' murmured Lawford under his breath; 'who was it
was saying that? Have you ever, Sheila, in a dream, or just as one's
thoughts go sometimes, seen that door?...its ruinous stone lintel carved
into lichenous stone heads...stonily silent in the last t