Relief was so great, indeed, that Grainger found himself almost clinging to her hand in his sudden thankfulness. “You’re not so ill, then,” he brought out. “I heard it--that you had broken down--and I came back. I was in the Dolomites. I hadn’t had news of you since I left.” “So ill! Nonsense,” said Eppie, giving his hand a reassuring shake and releasing her own to pull off her soft, loose gloves. “It was a breakdown I had, but nothing serious. I believe it to have been an attack of biliousness, myself. People don’t like to own to liver when they can claim graceful maladies like nervous prostration,--so it was called. But liver, only, I fear it was. And I’m all right now, thank goodness, for I loathe being ill and am a horrid patient.” She had taken off her hat, pushing back her hair from her forehead and sinking into a chair that was against the light. The Michaelmas daisies made a background for the bronze and white of her head, for, as she rested, the color that her surprise and her swift walking had given her died. She was glad to rest, her smile said that, and he saw, indeed, that she was utterly tired. Suddenly, as he looked at her, seeing the great fatigue, seeing the pallor, seeing the smile only stay as if with determination, the truth of Miss Allen’s description was revealed to him. She was frightfully changed. Her smile, her courage, made him think of a _danse macabre_. The rhythm, the gaiety of life were there, but life itself was gone. The revelation came to him, but he felt himself clutch it silently, and he let her go on talking. She went on, indeed, very volubly, talking of her breakdown, of how good the general and her aunt had been to her, and of how getting back to her work had picked her up directly. “I think I’ll finally pitch my tent here,” she went on. “The interest grows all the time,--and the ties, the responsibility. One can’t do things by half measures; you know that, thorough person that you are. I mustn’t waste my mite of income by gadding about. I’m going to chuck all the rest and give myself altogether to this.” “You used to think that the rest helped you in this,” said Grainger. “To a certain extent it did, and will, for I’ve had so much that it will last me for a long time.” “You intend to live permanently down here?” “I shall have my holidays, and I shall run up to civilization for a dinner or two now and then. It’s not that I’ve any illusions about my usefulness or importance. It’s that all this is so useful to me. It’s something I can do with all my might and main, and I’ve such masses of energy you know, Jim, that need employment. And then, though of course one works at the wrong side of the tapestry and has to trust that the pattern is coming right, I do believe that, to a certain extent, it does need me.”