“The fairy has just said that we ought to go and see Miss Eve.”
“What a sensible fairy. Yes, do let’s go. She may let me see her do her hair.”
Canterton smiled. He meant to carry Lynette on his shoulders into the garden of Orchards Corner, to hold her up as a symbol and a sign, to betray in the child his surrender. Assuredly it was possible for them to be healed. He would say, “Let’s go back into yesterday. Try and forgive me for being blind. We will be big children together, you and I, with Lynette.”
Some warning voice seemed to speak to him as they entered the lane, questioning this plan of his, throwing out a vague hint of unexpected happenings. He heard Eve saying good-bye over yonder among the fir trees. She had refused to say good night.
He set Lynette down under the hedge, and spoke in a whisper.
“We’ll play at hide and seek. I’ll go on and see if I can find her.”
“Yes. I’ll hide, and jump out when you bring her into the lane, daddy.”
“That’s it.”
He wondered what sort of night Eve had spent, and his eyes were instinctively towards her window as he walked up the path to the house. His ring was answered almost immediately. The little, bunchy-figured maid stood there, looking sulky and bewildered.
“Is Miss Carfax in?”