She strove to pass him; all her strength was leaving her.

“You coward!” she gasped.

“I thought you would mistake me,” he said quietly.  “People usually do....  Sit down.”

For a while she lay sobbing in her arm-chair, white hands clinched, biting at her lips to choke back the terror and grief.

[Illustration:  “‘You can’t go!’ he said.”]

“As soon as your self-command returns my commands are void,” he said coolly.  “Nobody here shall see you as you are.  If you can’t protect yourself it’s my duty to do it for you....  Do you want Portlaw to see you?—­Wayward?—­these doctors and nurses and servants?  How long would it take for gossip to reach your family!...  And what you’ve done for their sakes would be a crime instead of a sacrifice!”

She looked up; he continued his pacing to and fro but said no more.

After a while she rose; an immense lassitude weighted her limbs and body.

“I think I am fit to go now,” she said in a low voice.

“Use a sponge and cold water and fix your hair and put on your shoes,” he said.  “By the time you are ready I’ll be back with the truth.”

She was blindly involved with her tangled hair when she heard him on the stairs again—­a quick, active step that she mistook for haste; and hair and arms fell as she turned to confront him.

“It was a sinking crisis; they got him through—­both doctors.  I tell you, Shiela, things look better,” he said cheerily.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ROLL CALL

As in similar cases of the same disease Hamil’s progress toward recovery was scarcely appreciable for a fortnight or so, then, danger of reinfection practically over, convalescence began with the new moon of May.

Other things also began about that time, including a lawsuit against Portlaw, the lilacs, jonquils, and appleblossoms in Shiela’s garden, and Malcourt’s capricious journeys to New York on business concerning which he offered no explanation to anybody.

The summons bidding William Van Beuren Portlaw of Camp Chickadee, town of Pride’s Fall, Horican County, New York, to defend a suit for damages arising from trespass, tree-felling, the malicious diversion of the waters of Painted Creek, the wilful and deliberate killing of game, the flooding of wild meadow lands in contemptuous disregard of riparian rights and the drowning of certain sheep thereby, had been impending since the return from Florida to her pretty residence at Pride’s Fall of Mrs. Alida Ascott.

Trouble had begun the previous autumn with a lively exchange of notes between them concerning the shooting of woodcock on Mrs. Ascott’s side of the boundary.  Then Portlaw stupidly built a dam and diverted the waters of Painted Creek.  Having been planned, designed, and constructed according to Portlaw’s own calculations, the dam presently burst and the escaping flood drowned some of Mrs. Ascott’s sheep.  Then somebody cut some pine timber on her side of the line and Mrs. Ascott’s smouldering indignation flamed.