Just as this thought was drifting through her mind, the door opened and she hurriedly stuffed Jack’s letter beneath her silk quilt.  Radmore walked in, and his face softened as he looked down on the pale, fragile-looking girl—­for she did look very much like a girl—­lying on the sofa.

“I’ve brought you a lot of messages from Old Place,” he began.  “They really are most awfully miserable about you!”

“I’m glad the cat hasn’t been killed after all,” she said weakly.

She had at last seen the look of recoil on Dr. O’Farrell’s face, and she was now trimming her sails accordingly.

“That’s very magnanimous of you.”  Radmore smiled.  He was surprised, and a little touched, too.  “May I sit down?”

He drew up a chair, and then he touched the hand belonging to the bandaged arm.  “I do hope you are fairly free from pain?” he said solicitously.

“It does hurt a good deal.”

There was a pause; his hand was still lying protectingly over her hand.

She lay quite still—­a vision of lovely Paris frocks, a Rolls-Royce running smoothly by a deep blue sea, a long rope of pearls, flashed before her inner consciousness.  Then she was awakened from this dream of bliss by Radmore’s next words:—­“My godson’s going to write you a letter of apology,” he said.

And then, to her chagrin, he took his hand away; it was as though Timmy’s malign influence had fallen between them.  His very tone changed; it was no longer tender, solicitous—­only kindly.

“Mr. Radmore, I want to tell you something.  I’m horribly afraid of Timmy!”

There was an accent of absolute sincerity in her low voice.  She went on:—­“Dr. O’Farrell has been talking to me about him.  He seems a most strange, unnatural child.  The village people believe that he has supernatural powers.  Do you believe that?”

“I don’t quite know what I think about Timmy,” he answered hesitatingly.  He felt acutely uncomfortable, also rather shocked that Dr. O’Farrell had said anything about a child who might, after all, be regarded as his patient.  But Enid Crofton was looking at him very intently, and so he went on:—­

“I’ve never spoken to any of them about it, but, yes, if you ask me for my honest opinion, I do think the child has very peculiar powers.”

And then, all at once, Enid Crofton burst into tears.  “Timmy terrifies me,” she sobbed.  “I wish he never came near me!  He hates me—­I feel it all the time.  I’m sure he made that cat fly at me!”

Radmore remained silent—­he didn’t know what to say, what to admit.  He wondered uncomfortably how she had come so near the truth.

“Come, come,” he said, bending forward, “you mustn’t feel like that.  I don’t think the child hates you, but I do think that he loves trying experiments with that queer power of his.  I’m afraid he wanted to see whether the cat would behave as the dog had done.”