know he's gone."

"Not if I keep 'em together."

"_Then_ there's no lap for him. What he wants is petticoats."

(Petticoats? That was the secret, was it? He had tried to soap Baby, bit
by bit, as he had seen Winny do, holding him, wrapped in a towel, on his
knees--a disastrous failure. It was incredible how slippery he was.)

"There's his blanket. I thought I'd dry him on the floor."

"He'll catch his death of cold, Ranny, if you do. There, give him to me.
We'll take him downstairs to the fire."

He gave her the little naked, dripping body, and she wrapped it in the
warm blanket and carried it downstairs.

"You bring the towels and the powder puff, and all his vests and
flannels and things," said Winny.

He brought them. She established herself in the low chair by the fire
downstairs. He played with Dossie as he watched her. And all the time,
through all the play, his obscure instinct told him that she ought not
to be there. It suggested that if he desired to preserve the integrity
of the document, Winny and he must not be known to be alone in the house
together.

But it was a question of petticoats. He realized it when he saw Baby
sprawling in the safe hollow of her lap. He had meant to tell Winny
that she mustn't stay; but she had him by those absurd petticoats of
hers, and behind her petticoats he shielded himself from the upbraidings
of his sanity.

But Winny knew. She was not going to stay, to be there with him more
than was strictly necessary. When, with exquisite gentleness, she had
inserted Baby into all his little vests and things, she put on him his
knitted Baby's coat and hat, and gave him to Ranny to hold while she
arrayed Dossie in her Sunday best. Then she packed them both into the
wonderful pram, and wheeled them out into the Avenue, far from Ranny.

For she knew that Ranny didn't want her. He wanted to be left alone to
think.

CHAPTER XXIV

He had been incapable of thinking until now, the first moment (since it
had happened) that he had been left alone. Last night the thing had
stupefied him so that he could not think. If he had tried to describe
what had been before him last night, he would have said there was a lot
of cotton wool about. It had been all like wool, cotton wool, nothing
that the mind could bite on, nothing that it could grasp. Last night
Winny had been there, and that had stopped his thinking. It was absurd
to say that what had happened had disturbed his night's re