And then he was, instantly, reassured. Margaret was alone in the dim room, and as she came to meet him he saw in her approach to him that she had been wanting him. In her extended hands he found a welcome that implied also a need. He felt, as he met her and greeted her and looked again into the grave, tender eyes that he had been wanting so badly ever since he had seen them last, that there was nothing more wonderful than the way that their relationship advanced between every meeting. They met, exchanged a word or two and parted, but in the days that separated them their spirits seemed to leap together, to crowd into lonely hours a communion that bound them more closely than any physical intimacy could do. "Oh! I'm so glad you've come. I had hoped it, wanted it." He sat down close to her, his dark eyes on her face. "You're in trouble? I can see." She bent her eyes gravely on the fire, and as slowly she tried to put together the things that she wished to say he felt, in her earnest thoughtfulness, a rest, a relief, so wonderful that it was like plunging his body into cool water after a long and arid journey. "No, it is nothing. I don't want to make things more overwhelming than they are. Only, it is, I think, simply that during these last days when mother and Rupert have both been ill, I have been overwhelmed." "Rupert?" "Yes, we'll come to him in a moment. You must remember," she smiled up at him as she said it, "that I'm not the least the kind of person who makes the best of things--in fact I'm not a useful person at all. I suppose being abroad so long with my music spoiled me, but whatever it is I seem unable to wrestle with things. They frighten me, overwhelm me, as I say . . . I'm frightened now." He looked up at her last word and caught a corner reflection in the old gilt mirror--a reflection of a multitude of little things; silver boxes, photograph frames, old china pots, little silk squares, lying like scattered treasures from a wreck on a dark sea. "What are you frightened about?" "Well, there it is--nothing I suppose. Only I'm not good at managing sick people, especially when there's nothing definitely the matter with them. It's a case with all three of us--a case of nerves." "Well, that's as serious a thing as any other disease." "Yes, but I don't know what to do with it. Mother lies there all day. She seldom speaks, she scarcely eats anything. She entirely refuses to have a doctor. But worse than that is the extraordinary feeling that she has had during this last week about Rupert. She refuses to see him," Margaret Craven finally brought out. "Refuses?" "Yes, she says that he is altered to her. She says that he will not let her alone, that he is imagining things. Poor Rupert is most terribly distressed. He is imagining nothing. He would do anything for her, he is devoted to her." "Since when has she had this idea?"