How still the house was! What was happening upstairs? He could not go and see--he could not move. He was held by the stillness. The doctor would come and tell him.... He thought of the toyshop--that blue ball--it would be the first thing that he would buy for the boy--and then soldiers--soldiers that wouldn't hurt him, that he couldn't lick the paint from-- Now the little silver clock ticked! He was so terribly tired--he had never been tired like this before.... The stillness pressed upon the house. Every sound--the distant rattling of some cab, the faint murmur of trams--was stifled, extinguished. The orchard seemed to press in upon the house, darker and darker grew the forest about it--The stars were shut out, the moon... the world was dead. Then into this sealed and hidden silence, a voice crying from an upper room, suddenly fell--a woman in the abandonment of utter pain, pain beyond all control, was screaming. Somewhere, above that dark forest that pressed in upon the house, a bird of prey hovered. It hung for a moment; it descended--its talons were fixed upon her flesh... then again it ascended. Shriek after shriek, bursting the silence, chasing the shadows, flooding the secrecy with horrible light, beat like blows upon the walls of the house--rose, fell, rose again. Peter was standing, his back against the wall, his hands spread out, his face grey. “My God, my God... Oh! my God!” The sweat poured from his forehead. Once more there was silence but now it was ominous, awful.... The little silver clock ticked--Peter's body stood stretched against the wall--he faced the door. Hours, hours passed. He did not move. The screaming had, many years ago, ceased. The doctor--a cheerful man with blue eyes and a little bristling moustache--came in. “A fine boy, Mr. Westcott--I congratulate you. You might see your wife for a moment if you cared--stood it remarkably well--” Slowly the forest, dark and terrible, moved away from the house. Very faintly again could be heard the distant rattling of some cab, the murmur of trams. CHAPTER VII DECLARATION OF HAPPINESS I Extracts from letters that Bobby Galleon wrote to Alice Galleon about this time: “... But, of course, I am sorrier than I can say that it's so dull. That's due to charity, my dear, and if you will go and fling yourself into the depths of Yorkshire because a girl like Ola Hunting chooses to think she's unhappy and lonely you've only yourself to thank. Moreover there's your husband to be considered. I don't suppose, for a single instant, that he really prefers to be left alone, with his infant son, mind you, howling at the present moment because his nurse won't let him swallow the glass marbles, and you can picture to yourself--if you want to make yourself thoroughly unhappy--your Robert sitting, melancholy throughout the long evening, alone, desolate, creeping to bed somewhere about ten o'clock.