And old friend wind paused to listen; came in tremendous gusts, Ha! Ha! Ha! and hurled the words aloft and tossed and rushed them high along the Ridge. "Something was wrong with me in there," Percival exclaimed. "Did I speak sense to him? What was happening to me? Was I dreaming? What was it?--oh, damn this wind!" Ha! Ha! Ha! thundered old friend wind, staggering him anew--Ha! Ha! Ha! An absolutely irrepressible party, old friend wind. CHAPTER XIV DORA REMEMBERS I Percival was not the only one that in this period was disturbed by uneasy dreams, by vague and strange half-thoughts, by "thinking without thinking," as though some other influence were temporarily in possession of the senses. Lady Burdon was thus disturbed; Aunt Maggie, too. But of the three Aunt Maggie only knew the cause. If Lady Burdon, if Percival, had brought their unrest to her for explanation she might have explained it as she was able to explain her own--the "fluttering" that very often came to her in these days of Percival's visit home. She might have told them, as she told herself, that it was occasioned for that the years were closing in now--the prepared doom gathering about them all and they responsive to its nearness as gathering storm gives vague unease, headaches, depression when its emanations fall. For her own part Aunt Maggie had herself in hand again--was again possessed by the certitude that nothing could go amiss with her plans. It had supported her through all these long years. It had been shaken, but had recovered again, by fear of Percival's affection for Rollo. It tore at her frantically, like a strong horse against the bridle, now that only a few months remained for its release in her revenge's execution. In little less than a year Percival would be twenty-one. She no more minded--relative to her plans--the proof of the fondness still between him and Rollo shown in his leaving her to stay with Rollo in town, than she minded--relative to the same purpose--his determination to be with Japhra again when winter ended. She suffered distress both at the one and the other in that they robbed her of the object of her heart's devotion; she felt no qualm that either would hinder her revenge. "Strange-like?" "Touched-like?" The villagers, when she passed them without seeing them in these days, were more than ever sure of that, poor thing; but she was more than ever sure--lived in the past and in the near, near future and had scenes to watch there. II Rollo's return to town was delayed longer than Dora had supposed in her letter to Percival. It was not till February that his doctors and his mother gave way to his protestations that he would never get fit if he could not go and have a glimpse of old Percival while he had the chance, and then it was only for a week--a passage through town to get some things done and to pick up the Esparts for a spring sojourn in Italy.