Alice turned swiftly. Her mother was standing at a little
distance, with all the calm and moveless concentration of a
waxwork figure, looking up at her from the staircase.

'I was--I was talking to Dr Ferguson, mother.'

'But as I came up the stairs I understood you to be inquiring
something of Dr Ferguson, "if," you were saying, "he can
walk and talk in the night": you surely were not referring to
your father, child? That could not possibly be, in his state.
Dr Ferguson, I know, will bear me out in that at least. And
besides, I really must insist on following out medical
directions to the letter. Dr Ferguson I know, will fully concur.
Do, pray, Dr Ferguson,' continued Sheila, raising her voice even
now scarcely above a rapid murmur--'do pray assure my daughter
that she must have patience; that however much even he himself
may desire it, it is impossible that she should see her father
yet. And now, my dear child, come down, I want to have a moment's
talk with Dr Ferguson. I feared from his beckoning at the window
that something was amiss.'

Alice turned, dismayed, and looked steadily, almost with
hostility, at the stranger, so curiously transfixed and isolated
in her small old play-room. And in this scornful yet pleading
confrontation her eye fell suddenly on the pin in his scarf--the
claw and the pearl she had known all her life. From that her gaze
flitted, like some wild demented thing's, over face, hair, hands,
clothes, attitude, expression, and her heart stood still in
an awful, inarticulate dread of the unknown. She turned slowly
towards her mother, groped forward a few steps, turned once more,