‘They used to grow in the vicarage garden,’ she said wistfully.  ’Dark crimson ones like these.  I have been dreaming.’  And then she stopped and flung herself back wearily on her pillow.  ’Why must one ever wake from such dreams?’ she finished, with the old hopeless ring in her voice.

‘What was the dream, dear?’ I asked, smoothing her hair caressingly.  It was fine, soft hair, like an infant’s, and its pale gold tint, without much colour or gloss, always reminded me of baby hair.  I have heard people find fault with it.  But when it was unbound and streaming in wavy masses over her shoulders it was singularly beautiful.  She used to laugh sometimes at my admiration of her straw-coloured tresses, or lint-white locks, as she called them.  But indeed there was no tint that quite described the colour of Gladys’s hair.

’Oh, I was walking in some fool’s paradise or other.  There were roses in it like these.  Well, another blue day is dawning, Ursula, and has to be lived through somehow.  Will you help me to get up now?’ But, though she tried after this to talk as usual, I could see the old restlessness was on her.  A sort of feverish reaction had set in.  She could settle to nothing, take pleasure in nothing; and I was not surprised that Mr. Hamilton grumbled a little when he paid his morning visit.

‘How is this?  You are not quite so comfortable to-day, Gladys,’ he asked, in a dissatisfied tone.  ‘Is your head aching again?’

She reluctantly pleaded guilty to the headache.  Not that it was much, she assured him; but I interrupted her.

’The fact is, she sat up too late last night, and I let her talk too much and over-exert herself.’  For I saw he was determined to come to the bottom of this.

‘I think the nurse was to blame there,’ he returned, darting a quick, uneasy look at me.  I knew what he was thinking:  Miss Darrell’s speech, that Miss Garston always excited Gladys, must have come into his mind.

‘If the nurse deserves blame she will take it meekly,’ I replied.  ’I know I was wrong to let her talk so much.  I must enforce extra quiet to-day.’  And then he said no more.  I do not think he found it easy to give me the scolding that I deserved.  And, after all, I had owned my fault.

I had just gone out in the passage an hour later, to carry away a bowl of carnations that Gladys found too strong in the room, when I heard Uncle Max’s voice in the hall.  The front door was open, and he had entered without ringing.  I was glad of this.  The door of the turret-room was closed, and Gladys would not hear his voice.  I should manage to slip down without her noticing the fact.

So I busied myself in Lady Betty’s room until I heard the drawing-room door open and close again, and I knew Miss Darrell was coming in search of me.  I went out to meet her, with Gladys’s empty luncheon-tray in my hands.  I thought she looked rather cross and put out, as though her interview with Uncle Max had disappointed her.