grandfather died, and it could be
no one else's mill." The irresistible amusement at the absurdity that
spread over Ruth's face, and the undercurrent of laughter in her voice,
were secret miseries to Gwen, so explicit were they in their tale of the
unconsciousness that allowed them. She was relieved when the speaker's
voice went back to its tone of serious concern. "And there, now--if the
dear old soul didn't say to me, 'How came this mill to be your
grandfather's mill?'!"

"And after that?"

"Oh--then I saw plain! But I thought--best say nothing! So I got her off
to bed, and she went nicely to sleep, and no more trouble. But next
morning early there she was out of bed, hunting for the mill, and
feeling round it on the mantelshelf."

"And you still thought it was a delusion?" Gwen said this believing that
it _must_ excite suspicion of her object. But again unconsciousness,
perfectly placid and immovable, had the best of it, where scepticism
would have been alert in its defence.

"Well, I did hope next day, talking it over with Dr. Nash, that it was
just some confusion of hers with another's mill, a bit like ours; and at
her age, no wonder! Because of what she said herself."

"Said herself?"

"Yes--touching the size of her mill being double. That is, the model.
But ah--dear me! It was all gone next day, and she talking quite wild
like!" A note of fresh distress in her voice ended in a sigh. Then came
a resurrection of hopefulness. "But she has not gone back to it now for
some while, and Dr. Nash is hopeful it may pass off."

Gwen began to fear for her own sanity if this was to go on long. To sit
there, facing this calm, sweet assurance of that dear old woman's flesh
and blood, her own daughter, thick-panoplied in impenetrable ignorance;
to hear her unfaltering condemnation of what she must soon inevitably
know to be true; to note above all the tender solicitude and affection
her every word was showing for this unknown mother--all this made Gwen's
brain reel. Unless some natural resolution of the discord came, Heaven
help her, and keep her from some sudden cruel open operation on the
heart of Truth, some unconvincing vivisection of a soul! For belief in
the incredible, however true, flies from forced nurture in the hothouse
of impatience.

Gwen felt for a new opportunity. "When you say that next day she began
to talk wildly.... What sort of wildly? Are you sure it was so wild?"

Mrs. Thrale lowered her voice to