But outside he looked at Roger with an anxious face.
“She’s very ill, North,” he said. “It must have been coming on for some time. The storm—yes—that shook it up into active mischief, no doubt. We’ll pull her through, I hope; but would you like a specialist’s opinion? These brain troubles are very obscure.”
“I leave it to you,” said North, his whole being sick and empty.
“Well, we’ll see how she goes on in the next twenty-four hours.”
He sped away, and Roger wandered aimlessly about the farm, looking at the wreckage of the storm, with Larry and the little dogs, conscious in their dumb way that their beloveds were in trouble, keeping at his heel.
By one of those vagaries which make the English climate so lovable in spite of its iniquities, it was, after the day and night of storm and rain, that very wonderful thing a perfectly beautiful morning in November. The sun shone with astonishing warmth, scattering great masses of grey and silver cloud, against which the delicate black tracery of bough and twig, stripped of every lingering leaf, showed in exquisite perfection.
The farm was wide awake and astir with the life of a new day. But Vi, little Vi, was lying up there, at the Door of Death. Recollections of her as a soft-headed, golden-eyed baby came back to him; as a small child flitting like a white butterfly about the garden; as a swift vision of long black legs and a cloud of dark hair, running wild with the boys; as the glorious hoyden who had taken her world by storm in the days just before the war. And now she lay there a broken thing, tossed and driven to death in the purposeless play of soulless and unpitying forces. He ground his teeth in impotent rage, overcome with a very anguish of helpless pain and wrath. If only Ruth would come and tell him what had happened!
The cowman, who was helping the gardener clear away the remains of the storm, came up from the fallen tree and spoke to him. He was sorry to hear there was illness at the house. North thanked him mechanically and escaped into the flower garden. The few remaining flowers were beaten to the ground, their heads draggled in the wet earth. He got out his knife and began to cut them off and tidy up the border. He could watch the house at the same time. The minutes dragged like hours, and then, at last, the door on to the terrace opened, and Ruth came out.
She looked round and, catching sight of him, hurried by the shortest way, across the wet grass, to meet him. His pain-ravaged face smote her with a great pity. She held out both her hands to meet his.
“I could not come before,” she said. “She is quieter now. Oh, do not feel like that! She will get well. I know she will get well.”