Meanwhile, by slow degrees, the ‘imminent peril’ passed, and Maryllia came back to her conscious self,—­a self that was tortured in every nerve by pain,—­but, with the return of her senses came also her natural sweetness and gentleness, which now took the form of a touching patience, very sad, yet very beautiful to see.  The first little gleam of gladness in her eyea awoke for Cicely,—­to whom, as soon as she recognised her, she put up her lips to be kissed.  Her accident had not disfigured her,—­the fair face had been spared, though it was white and drawn with anguish.  But she could not move her limbs,—­and when she had proved this for herself, she lay very still, thinking quietly, with a dream-like wonder and sorrow in her blue eyes, like the wistfulness in the eyes of a wounded animal that knows not why it should be made to suffer.  Docile to her nurses, and grateful for every little service, she remained for some days in a sort of waking reverie, holding Cicely’s hand often, and asking her an occasional question about the house, the gardens and the village.  And January was nearly at an end, when she began at last to talk connectedly and to enquire closely as to her own actual condition.

“Am I going to die, Cicely?” she asked one morning—­“You will tell me the truth, dear, won’t you?  I would rather know.”

Cicely choked back her tears, and smiled bravely.

“No, darling, no!  You are better,—­but—­but you will be a long time ill!”

Maryllia looked at her searchingly, and sighed a little.

“What have they done with Cleo?” she murmured.

“Cleo is all right,”—­said Cicely—­“She was badly hurt, but Bennett knows how you love her, and he is doing all he can for her.  She will never hunt again, I’m afraid!”

“Nor shall I!” and Maryllia sighed again, and closed her eyes to hide the tears that welled up in them.

There was a dark presentiment in her mind,—­a heavy foreboding to which she would not give utterance before Cicely, lest it should grieve her.  But the next day, when Dr. Forsyth paid her his usual visit, and said in his usual cheery way that all was ’going on well’—­she startled him by requesting to speak to him alone, without anyone else in the room, not even the attendant nurse.

“It is only a little question I want to ask!” she said with the faint reflex of her old bright smile on her face—­“And I’m sure you’ll answer it!”

‘Jimmy’ Forsyth hesitated.  He felt desperately uncomfortable.  He instinctively knew what her question would be,—­a question to which there was only one miserable answer.  But her grave pleading glance was not to be resisted,—­so, making the best of a bad business, he cleared the room, shut the door, and remained in earnest conversation with his patient for half-an-hour.  And at the end of that time, he went out, with tears in his keen eyes, and a suspicious cough catching his throat, as he strode away from the Manor through the leafless avenues, and heard the branches of the trees rattling like prison chains in an angry winter’s wind.