When Saturday came it was evident that the hours of the day must be more strictly organised than they had been.  St. John offered his services; he said that he had nothing to do, and that he might as well spend the day at the villa if he could be of use.  As if they were starting on a difficult expedition together, they parcelled out their duties between them, writing out an elaborate scheme of hours upon a large sheet of paper which was pinned to the drawing-room door.  Their distance from the town, and the difficulty of procuring rare things with unknown names from the most unexpected places, made it necessary to think very carefully, and they found it unexpectedly difficult to do the simple but practical things that were required of them, as if they, being very tall, were asked to stoop down and arrange minute grains of sand in a pattern on the ground.

It was St. John’s duty to fetch what was needed from the town, so that Terence would sit all through the long hot hours alone in the drawing-room, near the open door, listening for any movement upstairs, or call from Helen.  He always forgot to pull down the blinds, so that he sat in bright sunshine, which worried him without his knowing what was the cause of it.  The room was terribly stiff and uncomfortable.  There were hats in the chairs, and medicine bottles among the books.  He tried to read, but good books were too good, and bad books were too bad, and the only thing he could tolerate was the newspaper, which with its news of London, and the movements of real people who were giving dinner-parties and making speeches, seemed to give a little background of reality to what was otherwise mere nightmare.  Then, just as his attention was fixed on the print, a soft call would come from Helen, or Mrs. Chailey would bring in something which was wanted upstairs, and he would run up very quietly in his socks, and put the jug on the little table which stood crowded with jugs and cups outside the bedroom door; or if he could catch Helen for a moment he would ask, “How is she?”

“Rather restless. . . .  On the whole, quieter, I think.”

The answer would be one or the other.

As usual she seemed to reserve something which she did not say, and Terence was conscious that they disagreed, and, without saying it aloud, were arguing against each other.  But she was too hurried and pre-occupied to talk.

The strain of listening and the effort of making practical arrangements and seeing that things worked smoothly, absorbed all Terence’s power.  Involved in this long dreary nightmare, he did not attempt to think what it amounted to.  Rachel was ill; that was all; he must see that there was medicine and milk, and that things were ready when they were wanted.  Thought had ceased; life itself had come to a standstill.  Sunday was rather worse than Saturday had been, simply because the strain was a little greater every day, although nothing else had changed.  The separate