He moved haltingly to the door, opened it, and the dog ran forth. Glenfernie returned to the window. "Prisoner." The word brought to his strongly visualizing mind prisoners and prisons through all Britain this summer—shackled prisoners, dark prisons, scaffolds.... He leaned his head against the window-frame.
"O God that my father and my grandfather served—God of old times—of Israel in Egypt! I think that I would release them all if I could—all but one! Not him!" He looked at the cedar. "Who was he, in truth, who planted that, perhaps for a remembrance? And he, and all men, had and have some one deep wrong that shall not be brooked!"
He stood in a brown study until there was a tap at the door. "Come in!"
Alice entered, bearing before her a bowl of flowers of all fair hues and shapes. She herself was like a bright, strong, winsome flower. "To make your room look bonny!" she said, and placed the bowl upon the table. To do so she pushed aside the books. "What a withered, snuff-brown lot! Won't you be glad when you are back in the keep with all the books?"
Glenfernie, wrapped in a brown gown, came with his stick back to the great chair before the books. "Bonny—they are bonny!" he said and touched the flowers. "I've set a week from to-day to be dressed and out of this and back to the keep. Another week, and I shall ride Black Alan."
"Ah," said Alice. "You mustn't determine that you can do it all yourself! There will be the doctor and the wound!"
Alexander took her hands and held them. "You are a fine philosopher! Where is Strickland?"
"Helping Aunt Grizel with accounts. Do you want him?"
"When you go. But not for a long while if you will stay."
Alice regarded him with her mother's shrewdness. "Oh, Glenfernie, for all you've traveled and are so learned, it's not me nor Mr. Strickland, but the moon now that you're wanting! I don't know what your moon is, but it's the moon!"