[CHAPTER IX.]
A NEW HOME.
KEITH stood with big blue eyes fixed upon Lettice's face, as she leant against the foot of the bed.
"Why not now?" he wanted to know. "'Cause you're tired? And you've got to unpack all that lot of boxes?"
"Some, not all."
"And then you'll have a jolly race with me, and ever so many games?"
"Perhaps—" was the utmost that Lettice could force herself to say. She had never felt more out of tune for boisterous fun. Keith pranced off, banging the door, and she remained where he left her, drooping in a dead blank of depression and loneliness, the like of which she had not before known. Always she had had her home, her sister and brother, her right to love and be loved by them: and now she was alone.
Nothing to live for: nobody to care for: no one to live and care for her: only Felix far-away out of reach, and the kind Valentines scarcely more accessible. A sense of dreariness weighed her down. It was not so much active pain as dull pressure—the harder to be resisted. Her head throbbed with dull responsiveness: and a wave of temptation to despair swept over her.
What hope, what interest in life remained? A cup of tea might have brought relief to body and mind, but the cup of tea was not forthcoming: and she of course did not realise, as at such times one does not, how far the depression was purely physical.
Dropping her hat, Lettice crept to the side of the bed and lay down upon it—lay flat and still, with closed eyes; for more than an hour, never stirring a finger.