At the back of the house on to which these windows looked was a garden of some half acre, a square of somewhat sooty grass, bounded by high walls, with a few trees at the further end.  Into it, too, had the message that thrilled through his bones penetrated, and this little oasis of doubtful grass and blackened shrubs had a totally different aspect to-day from that which it had worn all those weeks.  The sparrows that had sat with fluffed-up feathers in corners sheltered from the gales, were suddenly busy and shrilly vocal, chirruping and dragging about straws, and flying from limb to limb of the trees with twigs in their beaks.  For the first time he noticed that little verdant cabochons of folded leaf had globed themselves on the lilac bushes below the window, crocuses had budded, and in the garden beds had shot up the pushing spikes of bulbs, while in the sooty grass he could see specks and patches of vivid green, the first growth of the year.

He opened the window and strolled out.  The whole taste and savour of the air was changed, and borne on the primrose-coloured sunshine came the smell of damp earth, no longer dead and reeking of the decay of autumn, but redolent with some new element, something fertile and fecund, something daintily, indefinably laden with the secret of life and restoration.  The grey, lumpy clouds were gone, and instead chariots of dazzling white bowled along the infinite blue expanse, harnessed to the southwest wind.  But, above all, the sparrows dragged straws to and fro, loudly chirruping.  All spring was indexed there.

For a moment Michael was entranced with the exquisite moment, and stood sunning his soul in spring.  But then he felt the fetters of his own individual winter heavy on him again, and he could only see what was happening without feeling it.  For that moment he had felt the leap in his blood, but the next he was conscious again of the immense fatigue that for weeks had been growing on him.  The task which he had voluntarily taken on himself had become no lighter with habit, the incessant attendance on his mother and the strain of it got heavier day by day.  For some time now her childlike content in his presence had been clouded and, instead, she was constantly depressed and constantly querulous with him, finding fault with his words and his silences, and in her confused and muffled manner blaming him and affixing sinister motives to his most innocent actions.  But she was still entirely dependent on him, and if he left her for an hour or two, she would wait in an agony of anxiety for his return, and when he came back overwhelmed him with tearful caresses and the exaction of promises not to go away again.  Then, feeling certain of him once more, she would start again on complaints and reproaches.  Her doctor had warned him that it looked as if some new phase of her illness was approaching, which might necessitate the complete curtailment of her liberty; but day had succeeded to day and she still remained in the same condition, neither better nor worse, but making every moment a burden to Michael.