windows, her desk, her low rocking-chair beside it. She was awake. Fully awake. She was sitting up now. She was standing. She could feel the cold floor beneath her bare feet. And there was her father coming towards her from the hall.
'Father!' she managed to call out. She could speak, anyhow. And hear too.
He said, 'It's all right, Sheilah. Get back into bed.'
And suddenly she remembered everything!
'I sent mother away,' she said between the queer dry sobs that continued to have their own way with her. 'I didn't want her to touch me. I didn't want anybody to touch me.'
'Don't be afraid. Nobody shall,' her father assured her. 'Just get back into bed.'
'Oh, I don't mean you!' she cried out. 'Oh, father!' And she stretched out her bare arms towards him.
Sidney Miller wasn't a very big man. Sheilah was nearly as tall as he now. But he lifted her quite easily. He was, in fact, unaware of any weight at all as he slipped his arms beneath her wraith-like body, and carried her across the room to the low rocking-chair by the desk. She clung like a scarf beaten against him by the wind as he sat down with her.
'Don't leave me,' she begged.
'I won't,' he replied.
