Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/312



OWARD the evening of the third day following the motor spill, Judith sat in the deeply recessed window of a bedchamber on the second floor of a hotel situated in the heart of California's orange-growing lands.

Behind her Seneca Trine sat, apparently asleep, in a wheeled invalid chair.

There was no other occupant of the room.

Though he had lain nearly two days in coma, her father's subsequent progress toward recovery of his normal state had been rapid. Now, according to a council of surgeons and physicians who had been summoned to deliberate on his case, he was in a fair way to round out the average span of a sound man's lifetime. He had apparently suffered nothing in consequence of his accident more serious than prolonged unconsciousness. For the last twenty-four hours he had been in full possession of his faculties and (for some reason impossible for Judith to fathom) uncommonly cheerful.

From this circumstance she drew a certain sense 274