But Lady Dover's touch was very different to her mother's; indeed it was because it did not seem to be a "touch" at all that Madge unconsciously answered to it. "Ah, there you are, dear," she said; "I was expecting you. Will you not get on your hat, and come out for a little? It will do you good to get the air, and it is a lovely afternoon. I have never seen the lights and shadows more exquisite." It was this that poor Madge wanted, though she did not know she wanted it, just the cool spring water, the wholesome white bread of a kind, natural woman. Sympathy was no good to her yet, consolation could not touch her, but just the quiet, patient kindness was bearable, it made the moment bearable from its very restfulness; the lights and the shadows were still there, Lady Dover still talked of them, and though she did not know it, it was this very fact that other lives went on as usual that secretly brought a certain comfort to Madge. "Yes, I will come out," she said; "but I don't want a hat. I cannot go far, though." "No, we will just take a turn or two up and down the terrace. We get the sun there, and it is sheltered from the wind, which is rather cold to-day." Simple and unsophisticated as the spell was, if spell indeed there was, it worked magically on the poor girl, and for a little while that dreadful round of the impossible images which formed the panorama of her future ceased to turn in her head. Had Lady Dover's tone suggested sympathy, or, which would have been worse, spoken of the healing power of time, Madge could not have spoken. But now, when that incessant procession of the unthinkable future was stayed, she could focus her mind for a little on a practical question which must soon arise, and on which she wanted advice. "I want your counsel," she said. "They are going to give Evelyn, the doctor told me, no more drugs, and by this evening he will be himself again, fully conscious. Now, unless I deceive him, unless I tell him that he is being kept for the present in absolute darkness, he must find out that--that he is blind. Soon, anyhow, he must know it. Is it any use, do you think, putting it off?" Lady Dover did not, as Madge's mother would certainly have done, squeeze her hand and utter words of sympathy. She did not even look at Madge, but with those clear, level eyes looked straight in front of her while she considered this. Her first instinct was, as would have been the instinct of everyone, to say something sympathetic, but her wisdom--the existence of which Lady Ellington really did not believe in--gave her better counsel. For to be natural is not synonymous with doing the first thing that happens to come into one's head.