Grif said nothing, but his mouth felt dry and hot, and a mortal oppression weighed upon him. He wanted to get up, to go away, to get away from Mr. Bradley, but he could not move. And then, as he hid his face in the pillow, he heard the door open, and knew that Aunt Caroline had come back. He looked up. In spite of the evidence of his senses it almost seemed as if he must have awakened from a nightmare. For Mr. Bradley was not bending over his bed, but standing by the window, smiling and talking pleasantly to Aunt Caroline; and he was telling her that he, Grif, had been asleep. “Good-bye,” he said gaily, stepping jauntily to the bedside and wagging a playful finger. “I’m afraid we didn’t have much of a talk after all. The next time I pay you a visit I’ll wake you up at the first snore.” He was gone, and Aunt Caroline with him. Grif stared with miserable, clouded eyes at the opposite wall. CHAPTER XVII FANTASY ‘Then thy sick taper will begin to wink.’ ――_Donne._ Doctor O’Neill called again that evening, simply, he said, because he happened to be passing. Yet he stayed some little time, and when he came downstairs with Aunt Caroline he did not go away immediately, but followed her into the dining-room, where they were alone. “How do you think Grif is?” she asked him. “That’s just it: I want to put a few questions.... I don’t find him at all so well as he was this morning.” Aunt Caroline sat down, but the doctor remained standing, looking, as she thought, rather put out, as if something had happened to annoy or perplex him. “Isn’t it only that he’s tired?” she said. “I’m afraid he had too many visitors to-day.” “I see.” He nevertheless added almost immediately, “I can’t help feeling that there must be something else. And while I think of it, I fancy you would be better to let him have his dog back again.” “I thought it wiser―――― I mean, when he has been cooped up in the one room all day long――――” “I know: I quite understand. In this case, however, we must stretch a point. It is worrying him, and the less he is worried the better.” “Then I’m to put Pouncer back again?” “Yes.” He hesitated, his hands in his pockets, a slight frown drawing a line down his forehead. “I really don’t know why he _should_ be worse to-night, but he is――a good deal. It’s very much as if something had happened――as if he had had a shock.” He turned to her abruptly, with one eyebrow raised, a trick that always irritated her. For that matter they never talked very long together without treading on each other’s toes. “But what shock _can_ he have had?” she asked. “I don’t know. And whatever it may be, I’m afraid we’ll learn nothing from Grif himself.... You can’t think of anything that might have occurred?” Aunt Caroline shook her head. “He hasn’t left his room all day.”