y, been Alice's
nursery. He stood far back from the strip of open window that showed
beneath the green blind, craning forward to see into the garden--the
trees, their knotted trunks, and then, as he stole nearer, a flower-bed,
late roses, geraniums, calceolarias, the lawn and--yes, three wicker
chairs, a footstool, a work-basket, a little table on the smooth grass
in the honey-coloured sunshine; and Sheila sitting there in the autumnal
sunlight, her hands resting on the arms of her chair, her head bent,
evidently deeply engrossed in her thoughts. He crept an inch or two
forward, and stooped. There was a hat on the grass--Alice's big garden
hat--and beside it lay Flitters, nose on paws, long ears sagging. He
had forgotten Flitters. Had Flitters forgotten him? Would he bark at the
strange, distasteful scent of a--Dr Ferguson? The coast was clear, then.
He turned even softlier yet, to confront, rapt, still, and hovering
betwixt astonishment and dread, the blue calm eyes of his daughter,
looking in at the door. It seemed to Lawford as if they had both been
suddenly swept by some unseen power into a still, unearthly silence.

'We thought,' he began at last, 'we thought just to beckon Mrs Lawford
from the window. He--he is asleep.'

Alice nodded. Her whole face was in a moment flooded with red. It ebbed
and left her pale. 'I will go down and tell mother you want to see her.
It was very silly of me. I did not quite recognise at first...I suppose,
thinking of my father--' The words faltered, and the eyes were lifted to
his face again with a desolate, incredulous appeal. Lawford turned away
heartsick and trembling.

'Certainly, certainly, by no means,' he began, listening vaguely to the
glib patter that seemed to come from another mouth. 'Your father,
my dear young lady, I venture to think is now really on the road to
recovery. Dr Simon makes excellent progress. But, of course--two heads,
we know, are so much better than one when there's the least--the least
difficulty. The great thing is quiet, rest, isolation, no possibility of
a shock, else--' His voice fell away, his eloquence failed.

For Alice stood gazing stirlessly on and on into this infinitely
strange, infinitely familiar shadowy, phantasmal face. 'Oh yes,' she
replied, 'I quite understand, of course; but if I might just peep even,
it would--I should be so much, much happier. Do let me just see him,
Dr Ferguson, if only his head on the pillow! I wouldn't even breath