His tone was restrained, but it held an unmistakable note of apology. She lifted her eyes in amazement, but he had already turned away. He went out of the room with the free, deliberate swing with which he had entered, and she heard him descending the stairs with Roger pattering behind. “For goodness’ sake, never take any notice of Arthur!” said sensible Dolly, as she whisked about the room setting it in order. “He always was a bear, and the circumstances he talks about haven’t been such as to have a very taming effect on him.” Then she knew that by some means Dolly had obtained that semi-apology in order to keep her patient’s temperature normal. CHAPTER III THE BEAST From the day that her bed was moved to the window, Frances began to regain her strength. It came back to her slowly, with intervals of pain and weariness, when she felt as if she were making no progress at all, but it returned, and her indefatigable nurses gradually relinquished their vigil. “You can go downstairs and sit in the sun if you want to,” said Dr. Square one morning. And she thanked him and promised to make the effort. There was a corner of the old-fashioned garden that she could see from her window in which she had often longed to sit, but now that the time had come, all desire for change had left her. She lacked the energy for enthusiasm. “That’s because you are weak still,” said Dolly. “Never mind! I’ll arrange everything. We’ll get the couch out of the parlour. I can make it very comfortable with some pillows and a rug. It’s nice and cool under the cedar. Don’t you fret now! Just leave it all to me!” She went off briskly to make her arrangements, and Frances heard her from the garden calling Maggie to come and help her with the couch. Maggie came, the hair as usual flying all around her sunny face. She was accompanied by the young man they called Oliver, who carried a stable-fork and had evidently just come from the farmyard. Maggie was looking unusually serious, Frances discovered, as the three of them paused at a corner of the old house for discussion. Presently Maggie’s clear tones reached her. “Don’t you be a silly girl, Dolly! You’ve no right to risk it. You keep her where she is!” Dolly for once seemed undecided, and Oliver, with a faintly rueful smile on his comical countenance, ranged himself on Maggie’s side. “Don’t let’s have a shindy for goodness’ sake!” he said. “We’ve kept him quiet till now, but I won’t answer for him much longer. The beast has got to break out some time. I told Arthur so this morning.” “Oh, but this is nonsense!” declared Dolly. “You can keep him in the farmyard surely. I know I could.” “Well, you’d better go and do it then, that’s all,” said Maggie. “For he’s on the ramp this morning, and no mistake. I can’t pacify him.”