ing but a few immortal trifles, signed S.K.R. He had failed pretty
extensively as an editor. Last of all he had wanted to marry his
cousin Lucia; but there was risk in marrying her, and he would not
take the risk, and Rickman would marry her. He had failed most
miserably as a man.

With that Jewdwine turned on his pillow, and consoled himself by
thinking of Miss Fulcher and her love.

CHAPTER LXXIX

Lucia had been lying still all the afternoon on her couch in the
drawing-room; so still that Kitty thought she had been sleeping. But
Kitty was mistaken.

"Kitty, it's past five, isn't it?"

"Yes, dear; a quarter past."

"It'll be all over by this time to-morrow. Do you think he'll be very
terrible?"

"No, dear. I think he'll be very kind and very gentle."

"Not if he thinks I'm shamming."

"He won't think that." ("I wish he could," said Kitty to herself.)

They were waiting for the visit of Sir Wilfrid Spence. The Harmouth
doctor had desired a higher light on the mysterious illness that kept
Lucia lying for ever on her back. It might have been explained, he
said, if she had suffered lately some deep mental or moral shock; but
Lucia had not confessed to either, and in the absence of any mental
cause it would be as well, said the Harmouth doctor, to look for a
physical one. The fear at the back of the Harmouth doctor's mind was
sufficiently revealed by his choice of the specialist, Sir Wilfrid
Spence.

"_Do_ you think I'm shamming, Kitty? Sometimes I think I am, and
sometimes I'm not quite sure. You know, if you think about your spine
long enough you can imagine that it's very queer. But I haven't been
thinking about my spine. It doesn't interest me. Dr. Robson would have
told me if he thought I was shamming, because I asked him to. There's
one thing makes me think it isn't fancy. I keep on wanting to do
things. I want--you don't know how I want to go to the top of Harcombe
Hill. And my ridiculous legs won't let me. And all the while, Kitty, I
want to play. It's such a long time since I made my pretty music."

A long time indeed, as Kitty was thinking sadly. Lucia had not made
her pretty music since that night six months ago when she had played
to please Keith Rickman.

"Things keep on singing in my head, and I want to play them. It stands
to reason that I would if I could. But I _can't_. Oh, how I do talk
about myself! Kitty, there must be a fine, a heavy fine, of sixpence,
every time I talk about m