How the ache and the longing grew when Fancy triumphed, how alluringly the voice sounded. So it came to a day when Paddy the Fearless asked herself a question, and left it unanswered because she was afraid. But though she spoke no reply, perhaps it was given just as poignantly in a bright head buried in a pillow, and a little reluctant whisper, breathed to the feathers: “Oh, Lawrence, I can’t help it. I want you. I want you.” And the next afternoon, that sombre February day, she stood in the window still remembering, still vainly wrestling and puzzling, when a taxi drew up at the door, and Gwen stepped out. “Wait,” she said to the driver and ran up the steps with a haste that was somewhat startling. Paddy went out into the hall and opened the door herself, and immediately Gwen exclaimed: “Oh, I’m so glad you’re in, Paddy. Lawrence has been hurt in a motor smash. He wants to see you badly, and I said I would take you. Be quick, won’t you? I don’t like leaving him. He is in great pain, and one never knows...” CHAPTER XLV The Invalid. Paddy hesitated a moment, looking straight into Gwen’s eyes, almost with a challenge. “How much is he hurt?” “I don’t know. It happened three days ago, and he was taken to a hospital, but father had him brought in an ambulance to our house to-day. Surely you are not going to refuse to come...!” “No,” said Paddy slowly, “I am coming;” but her instinct told her he would not have been moved if he had been very badly hurt, and she believed that Gwen knew it. Still, when she saw him, her heart smote her indefinably; for Lawrence lying on a sofa with his arm in a splint, and a white, exhausted air of endurance, was something she could not steel herself against. She wished vaguely that Gwen had not left them alone so quickly, and moved away a little further, uncertain of herself. “I’m not much hurt,” he told her carelessly, though even as he spoke she saw that a spasm of sharp pain made him clench his hands and teeth. “But I expect I’m in for a bad time with my arm, and may have to have it off in the end. Serves me right, I suppose.” Then he added: “I don’t want the mater to know anything about it yet. She would only worry herself ill. How are you? It was nice of you to come.” He was looking at her as if he could read her soul, and Paddy felt her colour rising, and was unable to meet his eyes. She longed suddenly to go to him in his pain-wrung helplessness and touch his bandaged arm, and the fear that she would show it held her silent and constrained and aloof. With his quick intuition Lawrence noted everything.