"It must have been what Dr. Hewitt called neurasthenic inhibition," said Phyllis, watching the miracle of a standing Allan. "That was what we were talking about by the door that night, you foolish boy!... Oh, how tall you are! I never realized you were tall, lying down, somehow!" "I don't have to bend very far to kiss you, though," suggested Allan, suiting the action to the word. But Phyllis, when this was satisfactorily concluded, went back to the great business of seeing how much Allan could walk. He sat down again after a half-dozen steps, a little tired in spite of his excitement. "I can't do much at a time yet, I suppose," he said a little ruefully. "Do you mean to tell me, sweetheart--come over here closer, where I can touch you--you're awfully far away--do you mean to tell me that all that ailed me was I thought I couldn't move?" "Oh, no!" explained Phyllis, moving her chair close, and then, as that did not seem satisfactory, perching on the arm of Allan's. "You'd been unable to move for so long that when you were able to at last your subconscious mind clamped down on your muscles and was convinced you couldn't. So no matter how much you consciously tried, you couldn't make the muscles go till you were so strongly excited it broke the inhibition--just as people can lift things in delirium or excitement that they couldn't possibly move at other times. Do you see?" "I do," said Allan, kissing the back of her neck irrelevantly. "If somebody'd tried to shoot me up five years ago I might be a well man now. That's a beautiful word of yours, Phyllis, inhibition. What a lot of big words you know!" "Oh, if you won't be serious!" said she. "We'll have to be," said Allan, laughing, "for here's Wallis, and, as I live, from the direction of the house. I thought they carried our friend the tramp out through the hedge--he must have gone all the way around." Phyllis was secretly certain that Wallis had been crying a little, but all he said was, "We've taken the tramp to the lock-up, sir." But his master and his mistress were not so dignified. They showed him exhaustively that Allan could really stand and walk, and Allan demonstrated it, and Wallis nearly cried again. Then they went in, for Phyllis was sure Allan needed a thorough rest after all this. She was shaking from head to foot herself with joyful excitement, but she did not even know it. And it was long past dinner-time, though every one but Lily-Anna, to whom the happy news had somehow filtered, had forgotten it. "I've always wanted to hold you in my arms, this way," said Allan late that evening, as they stood in the rose-garden again; "but I thought I never would.... Phyllis, did you ever want me to?" It was too beautiful a moonlight night to waste in the house, or even on the porch. The couch had been wheeled to its accustomed place in the rose-garden, and Allan was supposed to be lying on it as he often did in the evenings. But it was hard to make him stay there.