Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/237

232 And so sleeping, he came back to earth, to health, to happiness. And never in all her life had Eleanor spent more calmly blissful hours than those in which she sat by her husband's side, watching this marvellous return.

The subject of the brutal attack on Aske, as the cause of his illness, was not named to him, and for some time after consciousness returned he did not allude to it. If remembered at all, the memory was only a part of all the hideous phantoms which had peopled the period of his delirium.

One day about the middle of February, he was moved to a couch near the window. He had promised to sleep, and Eleanor left him alone and went to make some change in her dress. But he glanced out of the window, and suddenly the desire for sleep left him. Between the leafless trees he saw the broad, white spaces of Aske Common, and the spire of the church. In some way they touched a key of memory, which gave him back the whole scene of Christmas-eve.

Quick and vivid as a dream every circumstance passed before him. The faces of the men who attacked him, their voices, their dress,