A week, ten days of unshadowed happiness and companionship, and then a cloud arose. Pat was not _well_; he grew worse; he grew seriously ill. The knee itself had done all that was expected of it, but the first attempt at walking, to which the poor fellow had looked forward as to a festival, proved in reality a painful and depressing experience. Back in his bed, limp with pain and exhaustion, poor Pat realised his own weakness with a poignancy of disappointment. He had expected to be able to walk at once, though not perhaps for any length of time, and these few stumbling steps had been a bitter revelation. All these weeks of confinement and suffering, and now a long and dragging convalescence! Pat's heart swelled with bitterness and rebellion. Despite the presence of Pixie and the constant visits of his friend, he was sick, sick to death of the one small room, and the monotonous indoor life, and as a young man successfully started in a young business, he longed with ardour to get back to his work. The world looked very black to Pat O'Shaughnessy for the rest of that day, and atmospheric conditions did not help to cheer him. It was raining, a slow, relentless rain, and in the air for days past had been a rawness, a chill which crept to the very bone. Pixie drew the curtains over every chink, and hung a shawl over the end of Pat's bed to still further screen him from draughts, but Pat was not in the mood to be coddled, and had that shawl whisked to the ground before one could say Jack Robinson. He was curt and silent in his manner, and--rare and significant sign!--partook of a fragmentary tea. Nothing was right; everything was wrong; his patience was exhausted, and though he remained studiously polite to his friend, with his sister he unrestrainedly "let himself go." "Don't wriggle, Pixie! ... Don't shout!--Don't tell us that story all over again. ... Don't lean against my bed. ... Don't sit between me and the fire!" so on it went all through the afternoon, which as a rule was so cheery and peaceful, and if Pixie preserved a placid composure, Stephen Glynn was far from following her example. He relapsed into a frigid silence, which added but another element to the general discomfort. The final stroke came when Pixie lifted the despised shawl and attempted to wrap it round Pat's shoulders, and was rudely repulsed, and told to mind her own business and not be a fool. Then, with his air of _grand seigneur_, Stephen Glynn rose from his chair and made his adieux. Cold as crystal was his manner as he extended his hand to the invalid on his bed, and Pixie followed him on to the little landing, apologetic and miserable. "You are going so soon? If you could stay and talk hard it might divert him from himself. He _needs_ diverting!" "I cannot," Stephen declared. "It's beyond me. After all you have done--after all your care, to speak to you so rudely!--"