Edward looked rather unhappy, but, warned by previous experience, said nothing. David found Elizabeth in the dining-room. She was putting a large bunch of scarlet gladioli into a brown jug upon the mantelpiece. “I’ve got a present for you,” said David. “David, how nice of you. It’s not my birthday.” “I’m afraid it’s not from me at all. I looked in to see if you were with Mary, and she sent you this, with her love. By the way, you’d better go and see her, I think she’s rather huffed.” As he spoke he was undoing the parcel. Elizabeth had her back towards him. The flowers would not stand up just as she wished them to. “I can’t think why Molly should send me a present,” she said, and then all at once something made her turn round. The brown-paper wrapping lay on the table. David had taken something white out of the parcel. He held it up and they both looked at it. It was a baby’s robe, very fine, and delicately embroidered. Elizabeth made a wavering step forward. The light danced on the white robe, and not only on the robe. All the room was full of small dancing lights. Elizabeth put her hand behind her and felt for the edge of the mantelpiece. She could not find it. Everything was shaking. She swung half round, and all the dancing lights flashed in her eyes as she fell forwards. CHAPTER XXIV THE LOST NAME You are as old as Egypt, and as young as yesterday, Oh, turn again and look again, for when you look I know The dusk of death is but a dream, that dreaming, dies away And leaves you with the lips I loved, three thousand years ago. The mists of that forgotten dream, they fill your brooding eyes, With veil on strange revealing veil that wavers, and is gone, And still between the veiling mists, the dim, dead centuries rise, And still behind the farthest veil, your burning soul burns on. You are as old as Egypt, and as young as very Youth, Before your still, immortal eyes the ages come and go, The dusk of death is but a dream that dims the face of Truth— Oh, turn again, and look again, for when you look, I know. When Elizabeth came to herself, the room was full of mist. Through the mist, she saw David’s face, and quite suddenly in these few minutes it had grown years older. He spoke. He seemed a long way off. “Drink this.” “What is it?” said Elizabeth faintly. “Water.” Elizabeth raised herself a little and drank. The faintness passed. She became aware that the collar of her dress was unfastened, and she sat up and began to fasten it. David got up, too. “I am all right.” There was no mist before Elizabeth’s eyes now. They saw clearly, quite, quite clearly. She looked at David, and David’s face was grey—old and grey. So it had come. Now in this hour of physical weakness. The thing she dreaded.