But Lawford, quite unmindful of the shock, continued in a kind of
heedless reverie to watch, as he combed, the still visionary
thoughts that passed in tranced stillness before his eyes. He
longed beyond measure for freedom that until yesterday he had not
even dreamed existed outside the covers of some old impossible
romance--the magic of the darkening sky, the invisible flocking
presences of the dead, the shock of imaginations that had no
words, of quixotic emotions which the stranger had stirred in
that low, mocking, furtive talk beside the broken stones of the
Huguenot. Was the 'change' quite so monstrous, so meaningless?
How often, indeed, he remembered curiously had he seemed to
be standing outside these fast-shut gates of thought, that now
had been freely opened to him.

He drew ajar the door, and leant his ear to listen. From far away
came a rich, long-continued chuckle of laughter, followed by the
clatter of a falling plate, and then, still more uncontrollable
laughter. There was a faint smell of toast on the air. Lawford
ventured out on to the landing and into a little room that had
once, in years gone by, been Alice's nursery. He stood far back
from the strip of open window that showed beneath the green
blind, craning forward to see into the garden--the trees, their
knotted trunks, and then, as he stole nearer, a flower-bed,
late roses, geraniums, calceolarias, the lawn and--yes, three
wicker chairs, a footstool, a work-basket, a little table on the
smooth grass in the honey-coloured sunshine; and Sheila sitting
there in the autumnal sunlight, her hands resting on the arms of
her chair, her head bent, evidently deeply engrossed in her
thoughts. He crept an inch or two forward, and stooped. There was
a hat on the grass--Alice's big garden hat--and beside it lay