to,
or not. With cessation of physical pain and the exhaustion of the
high-keyed string of his mind, came blessed reaction. Even the fact that
nothing mattered ceased to matter. The suggestion, emanating
simultaneously from the Parson and Killigrew that he should accompany
the latter back to London stirred him to only a faint thrill--indeed, a
certain disinclination to accept the offer was almost as strong as the
urgings of the common sense which told him that soon he would be won to
pleasure and interest, once the initial effort was over. Still, as the
days slipped past, he found himself looking forward more and more
keenly.

On the afternoon before he was to go to town he was resting on a couch
in his room when the sounds of Vassie's arrogant but not unpleasing
voice came floating up to him from the parlour as she sang her latest
song, the fashionable "Maiden's Prayer." He smiled a little to himself;
he could picture Killigrew, leaning attentive, turning the pages,
smiling between narrowed lids at the lovely thing she looked--chin
raised and full throat vibrant--yet giving so little away beyond his
admiration. The song faded, silence fell, then a door opened and closed.
Vassie's voice was raised, this time in welcome. He guessed the visitor
to be Phoebe from the fluttered feminine quality of the sounds
below--staccato sentences whose words he could not catch, but whose very
rhythm, broken and eager, betrayed them. A moment later, and a knock
came at his door.

It was Vassie who entered, somewhat sulkily, her beauty clouded by a
shade of reluctance--Phoebe, shrinking, palpitant, staying in the
shadowy passage.

"Phoebe has come to know if she may say good-bye to you, Ishmael?"
said Vassie. "She's heard you're going to London, and can't believe
you'll ever come back safely...."

"Why, Phoebe, that's kind of you," he called; "but won't you come in
for a moment?" He was pleased after a mild fashion to see her--she at
least stood for something not too intimately connected with his own
household, he told himself. The next moment he remembered that there had
been some suggestion--what his blurred recollection of it could not tell
him--that she might be being courted by Archelaus; but the slight recoil
of distaste stirred within him fell away before her frank eagerness, her
kindly warmth, as she pattered into the room, her skirts swaying around
her. She sat primly down beside the couch while Vassie stayed by its
foot,