expected, and her bodice seems very nicely cut. It
may have been an accident that she looked so dowdy yesterday morning. He
and she exchange morning greetings, passionlessly but with civility. The
lady may be accounting a _tete-a-tete_ by moonlight with a gentleman, an
hour long, an escapade, and he may be resolving on caution for the
future. By-the-by, _can_ a lady have a _tete-a-tete_ with another lady
by moonlight? Scarcely!

Mr. Norbury, the butler, always feels the likeness of the breakfast
rally to fish in a drop-net. If he acts promptly, he will land his usual
congregation. He must look in at the door to see if there is a quorum. A
quarum would do. A cujus is a great rarity; though even that happens
after late dances, or when influenza is endemic. Mr. Norbury looked in
at the rally and recognised its psychological moment. More briefly, he
announced that breakfast was ready, while a gong rang up distant sheep
astray most convincingly.

* * * * *

Adrian Torrens, too weak still to show alacrity in waking, hears the
sound and is convinced. How he would rejoice to join the party below! He
knows _that_, in his sleep; and resolves as soon as he can speak to
tell Mrs. Bailey the nurse he could perfectly well have got up for
breakfast. Yet he knows he is glad to be kept lying down, for all that.

He wakes cherishing his determination to say this to his tyrant, and is
conscious of the sun by the warmth, and the unanimity of the birds. He
knows, too, that the casement is open, by the sound of voices in the
garden below. His sister's voice and another, whose owner's image was
the last thing human he had seen, with the eyes that he dared not think
had looked their last upon the visible world when the crash came from
Heaven-knows-where and shut it out. He could identify it beyond a doubt;
could swear to it, now that he had come to understand the real story of
his terrible mishap, as the first sound that mixed with his returning
life, back from a painless darkness which was a Heaven compared to the
torture of his reviving consciousness. It was strange to be told now
that at that moment the medical verdict had been given that he was dead.
But he could swear to the voice--even to the words! What was it saying
now?

"You may rely on me--indeed you may--to say nothing about the eyes. He
will be just able to see us, I suppose?"

"He will hardly recognise you. How long was it altogether, do you