Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/300

288 once is a great while strike me all of a sudden before I know it. I'm all right now."

"What was it?" asked Kenneth.

"It sounds too fantastic and silly."

"Tell me," he urged.

"Well, you know Dolman—the tree spirit I told you I used to believe in when I was little."

"Yes."

"All of a sudden he seemed to swoop down on me—terribly. Something was terribly wrong. I felt the shivers go up my back. He seemed so excited; and always Dolman has been so calm. And something was terribly wrong," she repeated. "Isn't it too absurd. Bur-r, I'm chilly. Let's go home."

preferred to make his call alone. He was directed by Sing Toy to the east paddock, where Colonel Peyton was looking at some colts. Thus when the two withdrew to the shade, they found themselves under the wide-spreading branches of Dolman's House.

Daphne was perched aloft and invisible, and as she heard them below her, she drew herself together in a panic lest she be seen before they had moved on. Daphne was now nineteen years old; not at all an age to be discovered roosting up a tree. She thought the two men had paused for a momentary chat. When it became evident that a longer conversation was forward, her first feeling was merely of annoyance that she must remain in a cramped position for so long. But after a few sentences it came to her that she was eavesdropping on what might be extremely private business affairs, and that she should make herself known. But now a strange thing happened to her. She could not move; her surroundings became hazy to her; withdrew a vast distance from the centre of her consciousness. It seemed to her that she was physically inhibited from movement and from speech, as one is bound in a dream. The motor messages sent from her brain resulted in nothing. Only the hearing and recording faculties were clear. It was as though Dolman had