When she wakened it was not with a start or sense of anxiety even though she found herself sitting up in the broad morning light. She wondered at her own sense of being rested and really not afraid. She told herself that it was all because of the smile she had left on Robin's face and remembered as her own eyes closed.
She got up and stole to the partly opened door of the next room and looked in. All was quite still. Robin herself seemed very still but she was awake. She lay upon her pillow with a long curly plait trailing over one shoulder—and she was smiling as she had smiled in her sleep—softly—wonderfully. "I thank God for that," Dowie thought as she went in.
The next moment her heart was in her throat.
"Dowie," Robin said and she spoke as quietly as Dowie had ever heard her speak in all their life together, "Donal came."
"Did he, my lamb?" said Dowie going to her quickly but trying to speak as naturally herself. "In a dream?"
Robin slowly shook her head.
"I don't think it was a dream. It wasn't like one. I think he was here. God sometimes lets them come—just sometimes—doesn't he? Since the War there have been so many stories about things like that. People used to come to see the Duchess and sit and whisper about them. Lady Maureen Darcy used to go to a place where there was a woman—quite a poor woman—who went into a kind of sleep and gave her messages from her husband who was killed at Liège only a few weeks after they were married. The woman said he was in the room and Lady Maureen was quite sure it was true because he told her true things no one knew but themselves. She said it kept her from going crazy. It made her quite happy."
"I've heard of such things," said Dowie, valiantly determined to keep her voice steady and her expression unalarmed. "Perhaps they are true. Now that the other world is so crowded with those that found themselves there sudden—perhaps they are crowded so close to earth that they try to speak across to the ones that are longing to hear them. It might be. Lie still, my dear, and I'll bring you a cup of good hot milk to drink. Do you think you could eat a new-laid egg and a shred of toast?"
"I will," answered Robin. "I will."