shed back and imprisoned tightly in a little plait tied
with a white ribbon--Milly's way. With fingers clumsy, yet gentle, he
took off the ribbon and cautiously undid the plait. Then he took a comb
and spread out the silk-soft hair more as he liked to see it, pleased
with his own skill in the unaccustomed task. She stirred again, but
still she did not wake. He was pacing up and down the room when she
raised herself a little on her pillow and looked fixedly at the opposite
wall. Ian held his breath. He stood perfectly still and watched her.
Presently she sat up and looked about her, looked at him with a faint,
vague smile, like that of a baby. He sat down at the foot of the bed and
took her hand. She smiled at him again, this time with more definite
meaning.

"Do you know who it is, sweetheart?" he said in a low voice. She nodded
slightly and went on smiling, as though quietly happy.

"Ian," she breathed, at length.

"Yes, darling."

"I've been away a long, long time. How long?"

He told her.

She uttered a little "Ah!" and frowned; lay quiet awhile, then drew her
hand from Ian's and sat up still more.

"I sha'n't lie here any longer," she said, in a stronger voice. "It's
just waste of time." She pushed back the clothes and swung her feet out
of bed. "Oh, how glad I am to be back again! Are you glad I'm back, Ian?
Say you are, do say you are!"

And Ian on his knees before her, said that he was.

CHAPTER XIV

Ian was leaning against the high mantel-piece of his study. Above it,
let into the panelling, was an eighteenth-century painting of the Bridge
and Castle of St. Angelo, browned by time. He was wondering how to tell
Mildred about the child, and whether she would resent its presence. She,
too, was meditating, chin on hand. At length she looked up with a sudden
smile.

"What about the baby, Ian? Don't you take any notice of it yet?"

He was surprised.

"How do you know about him?"

She frowned thoughtfully.

"I seem to know things that have happened in a kind of way--rather as
though I had seen them in a dream. But they haven't happened to me, you
know."

"Was it the same last time?"

"No; but the first time I came, and especially just at first, I seemed
to remember all kinds of things--" She paused as though trying in vain
to revive her impressions--"Odd things, not a bit like anything in
Oxford. I can't recall them now, but sometimes in London I fancy I've
seen places before."

"Of co