Garth passed his cup to be refilled, and leaned forward confidentially. "Now," he said, "I can venture to tell you one of my minor trials. I am always so awfully afraid of there being a FLY in things. Ever since I was a small boy I have had such a horror of inadvertently eating flies. When I was about six, I heard a lady visitor say to my mother: 'Oh, one HAS to swallow a fly--about once a year! I have just swallowed mine, on the way here!' This terrible idea of an annual fly took possession of my small mind. I used to be thankful when it happened, and I got it over. I remember quickly finishing a bit of bread in which I had seen signs of legs and wings, feeling it was an easy way of taking it and I should thus be exempt for twelve glad months; but I had to run up and down the terrace with clenched hands while I swallowed it. And when I discovered the fallacy of the annual fly, I was just as particular in my dread of an accidental one. I don't believe I ever sat down to sardines on toast at a restaurant without looking under the toast for my bugbear, though as I lifted it I felt rather like the old woman who always looks under the bed for a burglar. Ah, but since the accident this foolishly small thing HAS made me suffer! I cannot say: 'Simpson, are you sure there is not a fly in this soup?' Simpson would say: 'No--sir; no fly--sir,' and would cough behind his hand, and I could never ask him again." Nurse Rosemary leaned forward and placed his cup where he could reach it easily, just touching his right hand with the edge of the saucer. "Have all your meals with me," she said, in a tone of such complete understanding, that it was almost a caress; "and I can promise there shall never be any flies in anything. Could you not trust my eyes for this?" And Garth replied, with a happy, grateful smile: "I could trust your kind and faithful eyes for anything. Ah! and that reminds me: I want to intrust to them a task I could confide to no one else. Is it twilight yet, Miss Gray, or is an hour of daylight left to us?" Nurse Rosemary glanced out of the window and looked at her watch. "We ordered tea early," she said, "because we came in from our drive quite hungry. It is not five o'clock yet, and a radiant afternoon. The sun sets at half-past seven."