It was early morning. The storm was riding away in broken masses of heavy cloud. Drenched and dim, and covered with a rising silver mist, the racked world rested in a sudden calm. But the storm had left its traces in the broken branches strewing lawn and garden and field, and across the pathway a great elm-tree, snapped half-way up the main trunk, lay with its proud head prostrate, blocking the main entrance. The coolness of the dawn touched like a benediction Ruth’s tired face and black and bruised hands. For a few moments she stood looking up at the washed sky, the fading stars, while the dogs nestled against her, craving for notice. A great sense of life and happiness came flowing into her, flowing like a mighty tide with the wind behind it, and she knew that all was well. She would have given a good deal to sit down and cry, but there was much to be done. That morning passed like a hurried nightmare, the whole house pervaded with that painful agitation which the shadow of death, coming suddenly, brings, for Violet Riversley was desperately and dangerously ill. She was in a high fever, wildly delirious, and Ruth found it impossible to leave her. Miss McCox took command in her absence, and moved about house and farm a very tower of strength in emergency, while Gladys haunted her footsteps, crying at every word, as is the manner of her kind in such moments. In the sitting-room, Roger North and his wife, summoned by telephone, waited while the doctor made his examination. The room had been stiffly set in order by Miss McCox’s swift capable hands. Over the scorched and blackened patch on the carpet she had set a table, nothing but a general air of bareness and smell of burning remained to hint of anything unusual. Both windows were opened wide to the chill early morning air, and Mrs. North crouched by the fire shivering. She was utterly unnerved and overcome. The message had arrived just as she was dressing. She had swallowed a hurried breakfast, when, quite strangely, it did not matter that the coffee was not so good as usual, and the half-dozen notes and letters from various friends were of no real concern whatever. She had been engaged to lunch at the Condors. In the afternoon she had promised to give away the prizes at a Village Work Show. And into all this pleasant everyday life had come, shattering it all into little bits, the sudden paralyzing fact that Violet had been taken dangerously ill during the night. She and her husband had driven over in the little car to find the doctor still in the sick-room. Ruth was also there, and questioning Miss McCox was much like extracting information from the Sphinx. “I always disliked that woman; she has no more heart than a stone,” Mrs. North complained tearfully. “And I do think she ought to tell Miss Seer we have arrived. It is dreadful to be kept away from one’s own child like this and not know what is happening.”