wind. One of the Indians, Howat saw, had his arm raised, flourishing a
blade; a stupid effigy of savage spleen. Beyond the drapery Ludowika's
face was dim and white. It was like an ineffable May moon. Ludowika ...
Penny. For the first time Howat thought of her endowed with his name,
and it gave him a deep thrill of delight. He repeated it with moving but
soundless lips--Ludowika Penny.

Her husband lay with his eyes closed, his head bowed forward on his
chest, as if in sleep. At irregular intervals small, involuntary
contractions of pain twitched at his mouth. At times, too, he muttered
noiselessly. Extraordinary. Ludowika and Felix Winscombe and himself,
Howat Penny. A world peopled only by them; the silence of the room
dropped into infinite space, bottomless time. A sudden dread of such
vast emptiness seized Howat; he felt that he must say something,
recreate about them the illusion of safe and familiar spaces and walls.
It seemed that he was unable to speak; a leaden inhibition lay on his
power of utterance. He made a harsh sound in his throat, loud and
startling. Felix Winscombe raised his head, and Ludowika cried faintly.
Then silence again folded them.

Howat fastened his thoughts on trivial and practical affairs--the
furnishing of the house where he would take Ludowika, what David and
himself intended to do with the iron, and then his last, long talk with
his mother. She was astonishingly wise; she had seen far into Ludowika
and himself, but even her vision had stopped short of encompassing the
magnitude of his passion; she had not realized his new patience and
determination. He found himself counting the gorgeous birds in the
bed-hangings--twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, and stopped
abruptly.