she replied, 'I quite understand, of course; but if I might just
peep even, it would--I should be so much, much happier. Do let me
just see him, Dr Ferguson, if only his head on the pillow! I
wouldn't even breathe. Couldn't it possibly help--even a
faith-cure?' She leant forward impulsively, her voice trembling,
anal her eyes still shining beneath their faint, melancholy
smile.

'I fear, my dear...it cannot be. He longs to see you. But with
his mind, you know, in this state, it might--?'

'But mother never told me,' broke in the girl desperately, 'there
was anything wrong with his MIND. Oh, but that was quite unfair.
You don't mean, you don't mean--that--?'

Lawford scanned swiftly the little square beloved and memoried
room that fate had suddenly converted for him into a cage of
unspeakable pain and longing. 'Oh no; believe me, no! Not his
brain, not that, not even wandering; really: but always thinking,
always longing on and on for you, dear, only. Quite, quite master
of himself, but--'

'You talk,' she broke in again angrily, 'only in pretence! You
are treating me like a child; and so does mother, and so it
has been ever since I came home. Why, if mother can, and you can,
why may not I? Why, if he can walk and talk in the night....'

'But who--who "can walk and talk in the night?"' inquired a low
stealthy voice out of the quietness behind her.