A short silence followed, then Cecilia said suddenly:  “Did you say that father was in the drawing-room?  There’s fillet of beef, Stephen!”

Stephen turned away.  “Go and see Thyme!” he said.

Outside Thyme’s door Cecilia paused, and, hearing no sound, tapped gently.  Her knock not being answered, she slipped in.  On the bed of that white room, with her face pressed into the pillow, her little daughter lay.  Cecilia stood aghast.  Thyme’s whole body was quivering with suppressed sobs.

“My darling!” said Cecilia, “what is it?”

Thyme’s answer was inarticulate.

Cecilia sat down on the bed and waited, drawing her fingers through the girl’s hair, which had fallen loose; and while she sat there she experienced all that sore, strange feeling—­as of being skinned—­which comes to one who watches the emotion of someone near and dear without knowing the exact cause.

‘This is dreadful,’ she thought.  ‘What am I to do?’

To see one’s child cry was bad enough, but to see her cry when that child’s whole creed of honour and conduct for years past had precluded this relief as unfeminine, was worse than disconcerting.

Thyme raised herself on her elbow, turning her face carefully away.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” she said, choking.  “It’s —­it’s purely physical”

“Yes, darling,” murmured Cecilia; “I know.”

“Oh, Mother!” said Thyme suddenly, “it looked so tiny.”

“Yes, yes, my sweet.”

Thyme faced round; there was a sort of passion in her darkened eyes, rimmed pink with grief, and in all her gushed, wet face.

“Why should it have been choked out like that?  It’s—­it’s so brutal!”

Cecilia slid an arm round her.

“I’m so distressed you saw it, dear,” she said.

“And grandfather was so—­” A long sobbing quiver choked her utterance.

“Yes, yes,” said Cecilia; “I’m sure he was.”

Clasping her hands together in her lap, Thyme muttered:  “He called him ‘Little brother.’”

A tear trickled down Cecilia’s cheek, and dropped on her daughter’s wrist.  Feeling that it was not her own tear, Thyme started up.

“It’s weak and ridiculous,” she said.  “I won’t!”

“Oh, go away, Mother, please.  I’m only making you feel bad, too.  You’d better go and see to grandfather.”

Cecilia saw that she would cry no more, and since it was the sight of tears which had so disturbed her, she gave the girl a little hesitating stroke, and went away.  Outside she thought:  ’How dreadfully unlucky and pathetic; and there’s father in the drawing-room!’ Then she hurried down to Mr. Stone.

He was sitting where he had first placed himself, motionless.  It struck her suddenly how frail and white he looked.  In the shadowy light of her drawing-room, he was almost like a spirit sitting there in his grey tweed—­silvery from head to foot.  Her conscience smote her.  It is written of the very old that they shall pass, by virtue of their long travel, out of the country of the understanding of the young, till the natural affections are blurred by creeping mists such as steal across the moors when the sun is going down.