"Not a bit of it. Thanks to you, I believe I shall sleep like a top."

Nor was he disappointed.

For the first time in fifty-six hours he took his fill of natural
dreamless sleep: and, on waking next morning, the first sight that
greeted him was a letter from Dalhousie, propped against the milk-jug on
his early tea tray.

[1] Duster.

[2] It is an order--you understand!

CHAPTER XIX.

"And methought that beauty and terror were only one, not two;
And the world has room for love and death, and thunder and dew;
And all the sinews of Hell slumber in summer air;
And the face of God is a rock; but the face of the rock is fair."
--R.L.S.

That same evening after sunset, a hospital doolie was set down in the
verandah, and from it emerged Paul Wyndham--a long lean figure of a
man, whose most notable features were deep steadfast eyes, neither blue
nor grey; a mouth of extraordinary gentleness and capacity for
endurance; and the grave quietness of movement and speech, that may
mean power in perfect equilibrium or mere dulness.

Desmond and Honor welcomed him with unconcealed affection; and for
himself, his descent into the Valley of the Shadow seemed a small price
to pay for a convalescence cheered by the ministrations of these two,
than whom there were none dearer to him on earth. Of the unalterable
nature of his feeling for Honor, both husband and wife were well aware;
though no word of it ever passed their lips. They were aware, also,
that the love of a man like Paul Wyndham was a thing apart; implying
neither disloyalty to his friend, nor the remotest danger to any of the
three concerned. Conditions inconceivable to the pedestrian order of
mind.

Too weak to fret against enforced inaction at a time of stress, Wyndham
passed his days between sleeping and waking and eating; between rare
talks with Lenox and Desmond, and the restfulness diffused through
heart and brain and body by Honor's constant presence at his bedside.
She had amply fulfilled the promise given him more than four years ago
of close and privileged friendship; and he counted himself more blest
in its possession than many a man who wins the entire woman, to find
her no more than a plaster goddess after all.

Honor herself, apart from the natural woman's pleasure in nursing an
appreciative patient, was thankful for a definite demand upon her time.
For Theo was seldom available now, except for an occasional
after-dinner