‘I fear, my dear...it cannot be. He longs to see you. But with his mind, you know, in this state, it might—?’ ‘But mother never told me,’ broke in the girl desperately, ‘there was anything wrong with his _mind_. Oh, but that was quite unfair. You don’t mean, you don’t mean—that—?’ Lawford scanned swiftly the little square beloved and memoried room that fate had suddenly converted for him into a cage of unspeakable pain and longing. ‘Oh no; believe me, no! Not his brain, not that, not even wandering; really: but always thinking, always longing on and on for you, dear, only. Quite, quite master of himself, but—’ ‘You talk,’ she broke in again angrily, ‘only in pretence! You are treating me like a child; and so does mother, and so it has been ever since I came home. Why, if mother can, and you can, why may not I? Why, if he can walk and talk in the night....’ ‘But who—who “can walk and talk in the night?”’ inquired a low stealthy voice out of the quietness behind her. Alice turned swiftly. Her mother was standing at a little distance, with all the calm and moveless concentration of a waxwork figure, looking up at her from the staircase. ‘I was—I was talking to Dr Ferguson, mother.’ ‘But as I came up the stairs I understood you to be inquiring something of Dr Ferguson, “if,” you were saying, “he can walk and talk in the night”: you surely were not referring to your father, child? That could not possibly be, in his state. Dr Ferguson, I know, will bear me out in that at least. And besides, I really must insist on following out medical directions to the letter. Dr Ferguson I know, will fully concur. Do, pray, Dr Ferguson,’ continued Sheila, raising her voice even now scarcely above a rapid murmur—‘do pray assure my daughter that she must have patience; that however much even he himself may desire it, it is impossible that she should see her father yet. And now, my dear child, come down, I want to have a moment’s talk with Dr Ferguson. I feared from his beckoning at the window that something was amiss.’ Alice turned, dismayed, and looked steadily, almost with hostility, at the stranger, so curiously transfixed and isolated in her small old play-room. And in this scornful yet pleading confrontation her eye fell suddenly on the pin in his scarf—the claw and the pearl she had known all her life. From that her gaze flitted, like some wild demented thing’s, over face, hair, hands, clothes, attitude, expression, and her heart stood still in an awful, inarticulate dread of the unknown. She turned slowly towards her mother, groped forward a few steps, turned once more, stretching out her hands towards the vague still figure whose eyes had called so piteously to her out of their depths, and fell fainting in the doorway. Lawford stood motionless, vacantly watching Sheila, who knelt, chafing the cold hands. ‘She has fainted?’ he said; ‘oh, Sheila, tell me—only fainted?’ Sheila made no answer; did not even raise her eyes.