“David, how nice of you. It’s not my birthday.”
“I’m afraid it’s not from me at all. I looked in to see if you were with Mary, and she sent you this, with her love. By the way, you’d better go and see her, I think she’s rather huffed.”
As he spoke he was undoing the parcel. Elizabeth had her back towards him. The flowers would not stand up just as she wished them to.
“I can’t think why Molly should send me a present,” she said, and then all at once something made her turn round.
The brown-paper wrapping lay on the table. David had taken something white out of the parcel. He held it up and they both looked at it. It was a baby’s robe, very fine, and delicately embroidered.
Elizabeth made a wavering step forward. The light danced on the white robe, and not only on the robe. All the room was full of small dancing lights. Elizabeth put her hand behind her and felt for the edge of the mantelpiece. She could not find it. Everything was shaking. She swung half round, and all the dancing lights flashed in her eyes as she fell forwards.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE LOST NAME
You are as old as Egypt, and as young as yesterday,
Oh, turn again and look again, for when you look I know
The dusk of death is but a dream, that dreaming, dies away