"I don't see why not," Mrs. Spash said. "You've slept for nearly twenty-six hours, Cherry. You waked up once--or half-waked up. We gave you some hot milk and you went right to sleep again." "It's going to make me well--just being at Blue Meadows," Susannah prophesied. "If I could only stay-- But I'm grateful for a day, an hour." * * * * * Later, she came slowly down the stairs--one hand on the rail, the other holding Mrs. Spash's arm. She wore her faded creamy-pink, creamy-yellow Japanese kimono, held in prim plaits by the broad sash, a big obi bow at the back. Her red hair lay forward in two long glittering braids. Her face was still pale, but her eyes overran with a lucent blue excitement. It caught on her eyelashes and made stars there. A slim young man in flannels; tall with a muscular litheness; dark with a burnished tan; handsome; arose from his work at the long refectory table. He came forward smiling--his hand outstretched. "My cousin, Miss Stockbridge, has run in to Boston to do some shopping," he explained. "I can't tell you how glad I am to see you up, or how glad she will be." He took her disengaged arm and reinforced Mrs. Spash's efforts. They guided her into a big wing chair. The young man found a footstool for her. "I suppose I'm not dreaming, Mr. Lindsay," Susannah apprised him tremulously. "And yet how can it be anything but a dream? I left this place fifteen years ago and I have never seen it since. How did I get back here? How did you find me? How did you know who I was? And what made you so heavenly good as to bring me here? I remember fragments here and there-- Mrs. Spash tells me I've had the flu." Lindsay laughed. "That's all easily explained," he said with a smoothness almost meretricious. "I happened to go to New York on business. As usual I went to my friend Sparrel's apartment. You were ill and delirious in the next room. I heard you; forced the door open and sent at once for a doctor. He pronounced it a belated case of flu. So I telephoned for Miss Stockbridge; we moved you into my apartment and after you passed the crisis--thank God, you escaped pneumonia!--I asked the doctor if I could bring you over here. He agreed that the country air would be the very best thing for you, and yet would not advise me to do it. He thought it was taking too great a risk. But I felt--I can't tell you how strongly I felt it--that it would be the best thing for you. My cousin stood by me, and I took the chance. Sometimes now, though, I shudder at my own foolhardiness. You don't remember--or do you?--that I went through the formality of asking your consent." "I do remember now--vaguely," Susannah laughed. "Isn't it lucky I didn't--in my weakness--say no?"