if doubting that they
could have held that thread for a moment and left it intact.

Philip Harris moved restively a little, and came back. "There has not
been a word for seven weeks," he said, "not a breath--"

"They told you--?" said the surgeon.

"That they would wait three months! Yes!" Philip Harris puffed fiercely.
"It is hell!" he said.

"The boy is better," said the surgeon. "You have only to wait a little
longer now."

And he was whirred away in the great car--to the children that needed
him, and Idlewood had settled, in its charmed stillness, into the
night.... No one would have guessed that it was a state of siege
there--the world passed in and out of the big gates--automobiles and
drays and foot passengers, winding their way up to the low, rambling
house that wandered through the flowers toward the river and the wood.
Windows were open everywhere and voices sounded through the garden.

In one of the rooms, darkened to the light, the mistress of the house
lay with closed eyes. She could not bear the light, or the sound of
voices--listening always to hear a child's laugh among them--the gay
little laugh that ran toward her in every room, and called.

She had shut herself away, and only Philip Harris came to the closed
room, bringing her news of the search, or sitting quietly by her in the
darkness. But for weeks there had been no news, no clue. The search
was baffled.... They had not told her of the Greek boy and the muttered
words.

"Better not trouble her," the physician had urged. "She cannot bear
disappointment--if nothing comes of it."

And no word filtered through to the dim room... and all the clues
withdrew in darkness.

Out in the garden Alcibiades and Miss Stone worked among the flowers. It
was part of the cure--that they should work there among growing things
every day--close to the earth--and his voice sounded happily as they
worked.

The woman in the closed room turned her head uneasily. She listened a
moment. Then she called.... Marie stood in the doorway.

"Who is _there_--Marie--in the garden?"

The maid stole to the window and peered through the shutters. She came
back to the bed. "It's a boy," she said, "a Greek boy--and Miss Stone."

"Why is he here?" asked the woman, querulously.

The maid paused--discreet. She knew--everyone except the woman lying
with closed eyes--knew why the boy was here.... She bent and adjusted
the pillow, smoothing it. "He is someone Mr. Harris sen