In that deep-weighing, windless, mellow hush, alone in the house and garden, by the river, and on the hill, she saw all things begin to turn lingeringly, richly towards their end; and, at long last, felt in herself the first doubtful stir of new awakening. Mamma had not come home. She was in Paris now, and was to remain there for the present. She had been kind on that morning, when Judith had come to her bedside, told her that Julian had gone, that Martin was dead and that she herself was not feeling very well. She had asked not a single confidence, spoken no word of pity, but with merciful everydayness looked after her, revived her body with the practical comfort of brandy and hot-water bottles; and then, the next day, abandoned her cure and taken her away. They had motored all over France and into Italy and Switzerland; and Mamma, between long intervals of silence, had talked light sharp surface talk of the places and people they encountered, of food and clothes: talk that could be listened to with adequate attention and answered with ease. Through the close wrapping of lead upon her mind Judith had understood the deliberate and painstaking scheme of help, and been grateful for it. But when, after three weeks, Mamma started to make plans for an autumn together in Paris, Judith had suddenly asked to be allowed to go home. It was the first spontaneous impulse from a mind diseased, so it had seemed, beyond hope of revival. Sluggishly it stirred, but it remained: she must go home, be alone, find work, write a book, something.... Acquiescing, Mamma had not been able to conceal her relief. What a bore these weeks must have been for her! Judith saw England once more with the senses of one waking before dawn exhausted from a nightmare, apprehending reality with shrinking and confusion, and then, gradually, with a faint inflowing of relief, of hope in the coming of the light. Each morning she thought: “To-day I will begin to write--start practicing again--apply through College for some post....” But each evening found her still folded in the golden caressing solitudes of the garden, mindless and inert. There was no subject that could conceivably provide material for a book; no music that was not far too difficult to learn to play; no post that did not seem entirely distasteful. Then, one afternoon, she paused by the grand piano, hesitated, opened it and sat down to play--Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, Ravel ... a little of each, stumbling, giving up, going on again. At the end of two hours she stopped. At first her hands had not obeyed her; but after a time they had begun to remember, she had forced them to remember a little. She must practice scales and exercises: it was too humiliating to be at the mercy of stiff clumsy fingers.