very little of it. She did not know why she should have become half
unconscious. The last thing she could be clear about was that Dave was
shouting for joy, and Dolly frightened and crying. Then a gentleman
carried her upstairs out of a carriage.

"No!" said Gwen. "Carried her downstairs into a carriage.... Oh no!--I
know what she meant. It was my cousin Percy, not the fireman."

At this point Dr. Nash returned from the bedroom. Gwen began hoping that
he had found his patient really better, but something stopped her
speech, and she said:--"Oh!" Ruth Thrale was outside the room by then,
far enough to miss the disappointment in her voice.

Dr. Nash glanced round to make sure she was out of hearing, and closed
the door. "I don't like to say much, either way," said he.

Gwen turned pale. "You need not be afraid to tell me," she said.

"I see you know what I mean," said he, reading into her thoughts.
"Miracle apart, one knows what to expect. I don't believe in any
miracle, though certainly she has everything in her favour for it, in
one sense."

"Meaning?" said Gwen interrogatively.

"Meaning that she has absolutely nothing the matter with her. If she has
any active disorder, all I can say is it has baffled me to find it out."

"But, then, why?..."

"Why be frightened? Listen, and I'll tell you.... We gain nothing, you
know, by not looking the facts in the face."

"I know. Go on." Gwen sat down, and waited. Some faces lose under stress
of emotion. It was a peculiarity of this young lady's that every fresh
tension added to the surpassing beauty of hers.

"I want you," said the doctor, speaking in a dry, businesslike way--"I
want you to go back to when you brought her down here from London. Think
of her then."

"I am thinking of her. I can remember her then, perfectly." And Gwen,
thinking of that journey, saw her old companion plainly enough. A very
old delicate woman, in need of consideration and care. No bedridden
invalid! "When did the change show itself?" The doctor took the image
in her mind for granted, successfully.

Then Gwen cast about to find an answer. "I think it must have been ..."
said she, and stopped.

"When did you _see_ it?"

"When I came back, first. After I told her, still more."

"After that?"

"I thought she was improving, every day."

"I thought you thought so."

"And you mean that it was a mistake. Oh dear!"

The doctor shook his head, slowly and sadly. "Yesterday, at this tim