Mr. Lashcairn."

There had been a Berserk rage then, and violence before which the
doctors had been driven away.

All these things Marcella remembered during her lonely three-mile walk
in the winter twilight, and for the first time they co-ordinated with
other things, broke through her mist of dream and legend and stood out
stark like the summit of Ben Grief.

That night she was more than usually tender to her mother. Kneeling
beside her bed, she put her strong young arms under the bedclothes and
held her very tight. Through her nightgown she felt very frail--Marcella
could touch the sharp bones, and thought of the poor starved cows.

"My queen, my beautiful," she whispered in her mother's ear. "I'm going
to be Siegfried and save you from the dragon--I'm going to take you
away, darling--pick you right up in my arms and run away with you--"

She stopped, choked by her intensity, while her mother stroked her
ruffled hair and smiled faintly.

"You can't take people up in your arms and snatch them out of life,
childie," she said. And then they kissed good night.

As she went to her little cold room Marcella heard the padding of feet
outside in the croft, and grunts and squeals. The hungry beasts, as a
last resort, had been turned loose to pick up some food in the
frost-stiffened grass; incredulous of the neglect they haunted the
farm-house, the pigs lively and protestant, the cows solemn and pathetic