‘Then you are not afraid?’ Herbert said quietly. Grisel gazed steadily on, and almost imperceptibly shook her head. ‘You mean?’ he questioned her; but still he had again to read her answer in her eyes. ‘Oh, very well, Grisel,’ he said quietly, ‘you know best,’ and returned once more to his writing. For an hour or two Lawford slept heavily, so heavily that when a little after midnight he awoke, with his face towards the uncurtained window, though for many minutes he lay brightly confronting all Orion, that from blazing helm to flaming dog at heel filled high the glimmering square, he could not lift or stir his cold and leaden limbs. He rose at last and threw off the burden of his bedclothes, and rested awhile, as if freed from the heaviness of an unrememberable nightmare. But so clear was his mind and so extraordinarily refreshed he seemed in body that sleep for many hours would not return again. And he spent almost all the remainder of the lagging darkness pacing softly to and fro; one face only before his eyes, the one sure thing, the one thing unattainable in a world of phantoms. Herbert waited on in vain for his guest next morning, and after wandering up and down the mossy lawn at the back of the house, went off cheerfully at last alone for his dip. When he returned Lawford was in his place at the breakfast-table. He sat on, moody and constrained, until even Herbert’s haphazard talk trickled low. ‘I fancy my sister is nursing a headache,’ he said at last, ‘but she’ll be down soon. And I’m afraid from the looks of you, Lawford, your night was not particularly restful.’ He felt his way very heedfully. ‘Perhaps we walked you a little too far yesterday. We are so used to tramping that—’ Lawford kept thoughtful eyes fixed on the deprecating face. ‘I see what it is, Herbert—you are humouring me again. I have been wracking my brains in vain to remember what exactly _did_ happen yesterday. I feel as if it was all sunk oceans deep in sleep. I get so far—and then I’m done. It won’t give up a hint. But you really mustn’t think I’m an invalid, or—or in my second childhood. The truth is,’ he added, ‘it’s only my _first_, come back again. But now that I’ve got so far, now that I’m really better, I—’ He broke off rather vacantly, as if afraid of his own confidence. ‘I must be getting on,’ he summed up with an effort, ‘and that’s the solemn fact. I keep on forgetting I’m—I’m a ratepayer!’