bout--the meaning of things."

She went on as if she were remembering bit by bit. "When we were in the
Wood in the dark, he said the first thing that made my mind begin to
move--almost to think. That was because he _knew_. Knowing things made
him send the book."

The fact was that he knew much of which it was not possible for him to
speak, and in passing a shop window he had been fantastically arrested
by a mere pair of small sleeves--the garment to which they belonged
having by chance so fallen that they seemed to be tiny arms holding
themselves out in surrendering appeal. They had held him a moment or so
staring and then he had gone into the shop and asked for their
catalogue.

"Yes, he knew," Dowie replied.

A letter had been written to London signed by Dowie and the models and
patterns had been sent to the village and brought to the castle by Jock
Macaur. Later there had come rolls of fine flannel and lawn, with
gossamer thread and fairy needles and embroidery floss. Then the sewing
began.

Doctor Benton had gradually begun to look forward to his daily visits
with an interest stimulated by a curiosity become eager. The most casual
looker-on might have seen the change taking place in his patient day by
day and he was not a casual looker-on. Was the improvement to be relied
upon? Would the mysterious support suddenly fail them?

"What in God's name should we do if it did?" he broke out unconsciously
aloud one day when Dowie and he were alone together.

"If it did what, sir?" she asked.

"If it stopped--the dream?"

Dowie understood. By this time she knew that, when he asked questions,
took notes and was professionally exact, he had ceased to think of Robin
merely as a patient. She had touched him in some unusual way which had
drawn him within the circle of her innocent woe. He was under the spell
of her pathetic youngness which made Dowie herself feel as if they were
watching over a child called upon to bear something it was unnatural for
a child to endure.

"It won't stop," she said obstinately, but she lost her ruddy colour
because she was not sure.

But after the sewing began there grew up within her a sort of courage.
A girl whose material embodiment has melted away until she has worn the
aspect of a wraith is not restored to normal bloom in a week. But what
Dowie seemed to see was the lamp of life relighted and the first
flickering flame strengthening to a glow. The hands which fitted
together on t