own. He
would even have yearned over Carter, at the very moment when the youth
fulfilled his ancient distrust of him. He would have understood as even
Carter himself did not, by what gradual and destructive processes he had
arrived at the point of his outbreak to Jimsy; would have realized in
how far his physical suffering--infinitely harder for him than for the
others--had broken down his moral fiber; how utterly his very real love
for Honor had engulfed every other thought and feeling. And he would
have seen, in the last analysis, that Carter was sincere; he had come at
last to believe his own fabrications; he honestly believed that Honor's
betrothed would go the way of all the "Wild Kings"; that Honor would be
ruining her life in marrying him.

But Stephen Lorimer was hundreds and thousands of miles away from them
that day of their bitter need, making tentative notes for a chapter on
young love for his unborn book, listening to the inevitable mocking-bird
in the Japanese garden, waiting for Mildred Lorimer to give him his tea
... wearing the latest of his favorites among her gowns....

Madeline King was spent with her vigil and Honor had coaxed her to lie
down for an hour and let her take the chair beside Richard King's bed.

"Very well, my dear. I'll rest for an hour. I'll do it because I know I
may want my strength more, later on." She seemed to have aged ten years
since the day Honor had come to _El Pozo_, but she came of fighting
blood, this English wife of Jimsy's uncle. "I'm frightfully sorry you're
let in for this, Honor, but it's no end of a comfort, having you. Call
me if he rouses. I daresay I shan't really sleep."

Honor sat on beside him, fanning him until her arm ached, resting it
until he stirred again, trying to wet her dry lips with her thickened
tongue. She wasn't thinking; she was merely waiting, standing it. It was
a relief not to talk, but she must talk when she was with the boys
again; it helped to keep them up, to keep an air of normality about
things.

Jimsy King had read the message Carter held up to him and gone away
without comment, and Carter had stayed on in the _sala_. It was almost
an hour before Jimsy came back. Honor's stepfather would have marked and
marveled at the change so brief a little space of time had been able to
register in the bonny boy's face. The flesh seemed to have paled and
receded and the bones seemed more sharply modeled; more insistent; and
the eyes looked very