consciousness had begun to stir in him that was neither that of
the old, easy Lawford, whom he had never been fully aware of
before, nor of this strange ghostly intelligence that haunted the
hawklike, restless face, and plucked so insistently at his
distracted nerves. He had begun in a vague fashion to be aware of
them both, could in a fashion discriminate between them, almost
as if there really were two spirits in stubborn conflict within
him. It would, of course, wear him down in time. There could be
only one end to such a struggle--THE end.

All day he had longed for freedom, on and on, with craving for
the open sky, for solitude, for green silence, beyond these
maddening walls. This heedful silken coming and going, these
Sunday voices, this reiterant yelp of a single peevish bell--
would they never cease? And above all, betwixt dread and an
almost physical greed, he hungered for night. He sat down with
elbows on knees and head on his hands, thinking of night, its
secrecy, its immeasurable solitude.

His eyelids twitched; the fire before him had for an instant gone
black out. He seemed to see slow-gesturing branches, grass
stooping beneath a grey and wind-swept sky. He started up; and
the remembrance of the morning returned to him--the glassy light,
the changing rays, the beaming gilt upon the useless books. Now,
at last, at the windows; afternoon had begun to wane. And when
Sheila brought up his tea, as if Chance had heard his cry, she
entered in hat and stole. She put down the tray, and paused at
the glass, looking across it out of the window.

'Alice says you are to eat every one of those delicious