. The insane, insane improbability of it!" She laughed
again. It was delicious to hear her.

"But--he is a priest!"

"Much more difficult. He is a saint."

Alicia glanced at the floor. The record of another lighter moment
twitched itself out of a day that was forgotten.

"Are you quite certain?" she said. "You told me once that--that there
had been other times."

"They are useful, those foolish episodes. They explain to one the
difference." The tone of this was very even, very usual, but Alicia was
aware of a suggestion in it that accused her of aggression, that almost
ranged her hostile. She hurried out of that position.

"If it were possible," she said, frowning at her embarrassment. "I see
nothing--nothing REALLY against it."

"I should think not! Can't you conceive what I could do for him?"

"And what could he do for you?" Alicia asked, with a flash of curiosity.

"I don't think I can let you ask me that."

"There are such strange things to consider! Would he withdraw from the
Church? Would you retire from the stage? I don't know which seems the
more impossible!"

Hilda got up.

"It would be a criminal choice, wouldn't it?" she said. "I haven't
made it out. And he, you know, still dreams only of Bengali souls for
redemption, never of me at all."

A servant of the house with the air of a messenger brought Alicia a
scrap of paper. She glanced at it, and then, with hands that trembled,
began folding it together.

"He has been allowed to get up and sit in a chair," she murmured, "and
he wants me to come and talk to him."

"Well," said Hilda. "Come."

She put her arm about Alicia, and drew her out of the room to the foot
of the stairs. They went in silence, saying nothing even when they
parted, and Alicia, of her own accord, began to ascend. Halfway up she
paused and looked down. Hilda turned to meet her glance, and something
of primitive puissance passed, conscious, comprehended, between the eyes
of the two women.

CHAPTER XVI

For three days there had certainly been, with the invalid, no sign of
anything but convalescence. An appetite to cry out upon, a chartered
tendency to take small liberties, to make small demands; such
indications offered themselves to the eye that looked for other
betrayals. There had been opportunities--even the day nurse had gone,
and Lindsay came to tea in the drawing-room--but he seemed to prefer
to talk about the pattern in the carpet, or the corpulence of the