“Listen,” she said presently. “You may think it all imagination, or what people call imagination, but if you could only have seen it, as I did, you would know it was very, very real. It was when I was alone with her waiting for Doctor Eliot. I went to the window to pull the blind down a little, and when I turned round again—I saw”—she stopped, searching for adequate words—“I saw what looked like a wall of white light. I can’t describe it any other way, though it was not like any light we know of here, more wonderful, alive in some strange way. It was all round her. No evil thing could get through. I am so sure.” She looked at him with her heart in her eyes, but Roger North shook his head. “It leaves me cold,” he said. “Is that why you feel so sure she will get well?” “No. But I _am_ sure; that is all I know.” And to that Ruth held through the days of tense anxiety that followed, through the visit of the specialist from London, who gave little hope, through the despair of others. She moved among them as one carrying a secret store of strength. Mrs. North, pitiably broken up, clung to her for help and comfort, but North, after the talk in the garden, had withdrawn into himself and kept aloof. The ravages day after day marked on his face went to Ruth’s heart when he came over to inquire. But for the moment he was beyond her reach or help. Whatever devils from the bottomless pit rent and tore his soul during these dark days, he fought them single-handed, as indeed, ultimately, they must be fought by every man. Mrs. North and Fred Riversley stayed at Thorpe. “Uncommonly decent of Miss Seer,” said Mr. Pithey to his wife. “Turning her house into a hotel as well as a hospital! That stuck-up little Mrs. North, too. I’ve heard her say things about Miss Seer that have put my bristles up. Give me Lady Condor every time. Paint or no paint!” But Mrs. Pithey had learnt things down in the dark valley. She was not so censorious as of old. “I don’t cotton to Mrs. North myself,” she answered. “She’s a woman who overprices herself. But she’s a mother, and Miss Seer could do no less than take her in. You might take down some of these best Musk Cat grapes after tea, ’Erb. P’raps Mrs. Riversley could fancy ’em.” Everyone indeed was very kind, but with the exception of Lady Condor and Mr. Fothersley, Ruth kept visitors away from Mrs. North. Fred Riversley had astonished everyone by turning out a wonderful nurse, and what little rest Violet had was in his strong arms, nursed like a child. She seemed nothing more, and in her delirium had gone back to the days of her childhood and talked of little else, and more and more happily as the time went by. “One might as well try to keep a snow wreath,” he said one afternoon to Ruth, who was giving him tea after his usual tramp round the fields for some fresh air and exercise.