Adrian Torrens, too weak still to show alacrity in waking, hears the sound and is convinced. How he would rejoice to join the party below! He knows _that_, in his sleep; and resolves as soon as he can speak to tell Mrs. Bailey the nurse he could perfectly well have got up for breakfast. Yet he knows he is glad to be kept lying down, for all that. He wakes cherishing his determination to say this to his tyrant, and is conscious of the sun by the warmth, and the unanimity of the birds. He knows, too, that the casement is open, by the sound of voices in the garden below. His sister's voice and another, whose owner's image was the last thing human he had seen, with the eyes that he dared not think had looked their last upon the visible world when the crash came from Heaven-knows-where and shut it out. He could identify it beyond a doubt; could swear to it, now that he had come to understand the real story of his terrible mishap, as the first sound that mixed with his returning life, back from a painless darkness which was a Heaven compared to the torture of his reviving consciousness. It was strange to be told now that at that moment the medical verdict had been given that he was dead. But he could swear to the voice--even to the words! What was it saying now? "You may rely on me--indeed you may--to say nothing about the eyes. He will be just able to see us, I suppose?" "He will hardly recognise you. How long was it altogether, do you think?" "At Arthur's Bridge? Five minutes--perhaps less." "He took a good look at you?" "I suppose so. I think he did, as soon as he had got the dog chained. Oh yes--I should say certainly! I fancied he might have seen me before, but it seems not." "He says not. But you were not out when he went to Konigsberg." "Oh no--I had quite a long innings after that.... Well!--it _does_ sound like cricket, doesn't it? Go on." "Oh--I see what you mean. What a ridiculous girl you are! What was I saying!... Oh, I recollect! That was just after he graduated at Oxford. Then he went to South America with Engelhardt. He really has been very little at home for three years--over three years--past." "We shall see if he knows me. I won't say anything to guide him." Then he heard his sister's voice reply to the speaker with words she had used before:--"You know you must not expect too much." To which Lady Gwendolen reiterated: "Oh, you may trust me. I shall say nothing to him about it.... Oh, you darling!" This was to Achilles, manifestly. He had become restless at the sound of conversation below, and had been looking round the door-jamb to see if by any chance a dog could get out. The entry of the nurse a moment since, with a proto-stimulant on a tray, had let him out to tear down the stairs to the garden, rudely thrusting aside the noble owner of the house, out of bounds in a dressing-gown and able to defy Society.