“Oh, you!” retorted his sister, with a sad conclusiveness.
Ariadne came running out to them. “I just went to look into Muvver’s room, and she was sound asleep! Honest! She was!”
The child had heard enough of the doctor’s long futile struggles with the horrors of Lydia’s sleepless nights to divine that her news was important. She was rewarded with a startled look from her elders. “Come!” said the doctor.
They went into the house, and silently to Lydia’s half-open door. She lay across the bed as she had dropped down when she came in, one long dark braid hanging to the floor. They stood looking at her almost with awe, as though they were observing for the first time the merciful miracle of sleep. Her bosom rose and fell in long, regular breaths. The drawn, haggard mask that had overlain her face so many months was dissolved away in an utter unconsciousness. Her eyelashes lay on a cheek like a child’s; her mouth, relaxed and drooping, fell again into the lines they had loved in her when she was a little girl. She looked like a little girl again to them.
Mrs. Sandworth’s hand went to her throat. She looked at her brother through misty eyes. He closed the door gently, and drew her away, making the gesture of a man who admits his own ignorance of a mystery.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THROUGH THE LONG NIGHT
“They must have gone crazy, simply crazy!” said Madeleine, making quick, excited gestures. “Mrs. Sandworth, of course—a person can hardly blame her for anything! She’s a cipher with the rim off when the doctor has made up his mind. But, even so, shouldn’t you think in common decency she’d have let us know what they were up to in time to prevent it? I never heard a word of this sickening business of Ariadne’s adoption till day before yesterday. Did you?” she ended half-suspiciously.