"I've not lost that knowledge--no, I haven't," she answered almost in a whisper. The scene was a spur to his newly stirred impulses. He had rejoiced in his wife before now; but the clouds had always hung about the cot, so that he had not rejoiced nor gloried in the mother of his child. His heart was full as he sat and watched the mother and the child. "You've got to watch him very carefully still; but he's getting ever so much more--more----" "Lucid?" Grantley suggested, smiling. "Yes," she laughed, "and, if possible, more imperious still. I believe he's going to be like you in that." "Oh, not like me, let's hope!" He laughed, but there was a look of pain on his face. Sibylla turned round to him and spoke in a low voice, lest by chance the nurse should hear. "You mustn't be sure I agree altogether with that," she said, and turned swiftly away to the child again. Grantley rose. "Lift him up to me and let me kiss him," he said. With grave eyes Sibylla obeyed. But the natural man is not easily subdued, nor does he yield his place readily. In the end Grantley was not apt at explanations or apologies. The evening fell fair and still, a fine October night, and he joined Sibylla in the garden. Christine remained inside--from tact perhaps, though she was very likely chilly too. Grantley smoked in silence, while Sibylla looked down on the little village below. "This thing has shaken me up dreadfully," he said at last. "The Courtlands, I mean." "Yes, I know." She turned and faced him. "And isn't there something else that concerns you and me?" "I know of nothing. And you can hardly say the Courtlands concern us exactly." "They do; and there is something else, Grantley. I know what Janet Selford wrote." "That's nothing at all to me." "But it is something to me. You know it is." "I won't talk of that. It's nothing." He put his hand out suddenly to her. "Let's be friends, Sibylla." She did not take his hand, but she looked at him with a friendly gaze. "We really ought to try to manage that, oughtn't we? For Frank's sake, if for nothing else. Or do you think I've no right to talk about Frank?" "Suppose we don't talk about rights at all? I'm not anxious to." "It'll be hard; but we'll try to be friends for his sake--that he may have a happy home." Grantley's heart was stirred within him. "That's good; but is that all?" he asked in a low voice full of feeling. "Is it all over for ourselves? Can't we be friends for our own sakes?" "Haven't we lost--well, not the right--if you don't like that--but the power?" "I'm an obstinate man; you know that very well." "It'll be hard--for both of us; but, yes, we'll try."