tly determined to keep
her voice steady and her expression unalarmed. "Perhaps they are true.
Now that the other world is so crowded with those that found themselves
there sudden--perhaps they are crowded so close to earth that they try
to speak across to the ones that are longing to hear them. It might be.
Lie still, my dear, and I'll bring you a cup of good hot milk to drink.
Do you think you could eat a new-laid egg and a shred of toast?"

"I will," answered Robin. "I _will_."

She sat up in bed and the faint colour on her cheeks deepened and spread
like a rosy dawn. Dowie saw it and tried not to stare. She must not seem
to watch her too fixedly--whatsoever alarming thing was happening.

"I can't tell you all he said to me," she went on softly. "There was too
much that only belonged to us. He stayed a long time. I felt his arms
holding me. I looked into the blue of his eyes--just as I always did. He
was not dead. He was not an angel. He was Donal. He laughed and made me
laugh too. He could not tell me now where he was. There was a reason.
But he said he could come because we belonged to each other--because we
loved each other so. He said beautiful things to me--" She began to
speak very slowly as if in careful retrospection. "Some of them were
like the things Lord Coombe said. But when Donal said them they seemed
to go into my heart and I understood them. He told me things about
England--needing new souls and new strong bodies--he loved England. He
said beautiful--beautiful things."

Dowie made a magnificent effort to keep her eyes clear and her look
straight. It was a soldierly thing to do, for there had leaped into her
mind memories of the fears of the great physician who had taken charge
of poor young Lady Maureen.

"I am sure he would do that--sure of it," she said without a tremor in
her voice. "It's only things like that he's thought of his whole life
through. And surely it was love that brought him back to you--both."

She wondered if she was not cautious enough in saying the last word. But
her fear was a mistake.

"Yes--_both_," Robin gave back with a new high bravery. "Both," she
repeated. "He will never be dead again. And I shall never be dead. When
I could not think, it used to seem as if I must be--perhaps I was
beginning to go crazy like poor Lady Maureen. I have come alive."

"Yes, my lamb," answered Dowie with fine courage. "You look it. We'll
get you ready for your breakfast now. I will bring