Page:Conflict (1927).pdf/213

 seen Sheilah for the first time in the afternoon. They had talked for nearly two hours.

Sheilah had felt a strange new sense of courage stirring in her as she sat on the hotel verandah, and recalled some of the things Dr. Baird had just said—a stirring as thrilling as the first vague indefinite motion of a very much wanted child. Suddenly, one of those unaccountable moments of elation had taken possession of Sheilah, that used to, years ago. For an instant she was inexplicably happy and hopeful. She was going to get well! The black veil of despair was going to lift! Roddie was not going to grow up to be acheat. Laetitia was not going to grow up to be like Gretchen. She herself was not going to lose her love for Felix. Everything was going to come out all right! She leaned forward, and looking up, smiled into a bright shaft of sunlight, piercing the sunset clouds, and falling on her chair.

A few feet away, inside a plate-glass window, a man had been watching Sheilah, vaguely interested, puzzled, annoyed finally.

'I think I know that woman out there, Carl,' later he said to his old friend and college classmate, Carl Baird, now become so great and wise, 'but I can't seem to place her. Who is she, anyway?'

'Nawn is her name—Mrs. Felix Nawn.'