ave
way to delirium, with intervals when he knew that she was there, and by
the shaded candle light could see her in a white garment, floating close
to him, or sitting still with her hand on his; he could even feel the
faint comfort of the ice cap, and of the scent of eau de Cologne. Then
he would lose all consciousness of her presence, and pass through into
the incoherent world, where the crucifix above his bed seemed to bulge
and hang out, as if it must fall on him. He conceived a violent longing
to tear it down, which grew till he had struggled up in bed and wrenched
it from off the wall. Yet a mysterious consciousness of her presence
permeated even his darkest journeys into the strange land; and once
she seemed to be with him, where a strange light showed them fields and
trees, a dark line of moor, and a bright sea, all whitened, and flashing
with sweet violence.

Soon after dawn he had a long interval of consciousness, and took in
with a sort of wonder her presence in the low chair by his bed. So still
she sat in a white loose gown, pale with watching, her eyes immovably
fixed on him, her lips pressed together, and quivering at his faintest
motion. He drank in desperately the sweetness of her face, which had so
lost remembrance of self.

CHAPTER X

Barbara gave the news of her brother's illness to no one else, common
sense telling her to run no risk of disturbance. Of her own initiative,
she brought a doctor, and went down twice a day to hear reports of
Miltoun's progress.

As a fact, her father and mother had gone to Lord Dennis, for Goodwood,
and the chief difficulty had been to excuse her own neglect of that
favourite Meeting. She had fallen back on the half-truth that Eustace
wanted her in Town; and, since Lord and Lady Valleys had neither of them
shaken off a certain uneasiness about their son, the pretext sufficed:

It was not until the sixth day, when the crisis was well past and
Miltoun quite free from fever, that she again went down to Nettlefold.

On arriving she at once sought out her mother, whom she found in her
bedroom, resting. It had been very hot at Goodwood.

Barbara was not afraid of her--she was not, indeed, afraid of anyone,
except Miltoun, and in some strange way, a little perhaps of Courtier;
yet, when the maid had gone, she did not at once begin her tale. Lady
Valleys, who at Goodwood had just heard details of a Society scandal,
began a carefully expurgated account of it suitab