the eyes of his spirit and these pictures, so that it might not be bruised by the cruelty of them.
These various experiences presented themselves as sections of a screen, which shut him off from what might have been a shrinking contemplation of his future at Jalna. He lay supine, indolently dreaming of life, not daring to think how close he had been to death.
Meg's notion of rehabilitating him in his old niche, or something better, was to feed his body with the best that her kitchen could provide. Her intuition, and some self-reproach, told her that he needed tempting food and plenty of it. He was tempted like an invalid and ate like a field labourer. Renny, coming to visit him and finding him propped up over half a broiled chicken, thought, and declared vehemently at Jalna, that Meggie was perfect. Her remarks about Alayne had faded as breath from a glass. These were women's ways and beyond his ken. But he could take in the significance of Meggie's plump white hand stroking Finch's lank hair, or a crisp section of broiled fowl surrounded by green peas. The family at Jalna were told that Finch had had a "nervous breakdown" (most convenient of illnesses) just as he arrived at the Vaughans' house, had been taken in, and was being nursed back to health by the blameless Meggie, and that it would be a good thing if they could bring themselves to treat him with indulgence on his return. It was a relief to all to have him out of the house for that week. The sight of his angular, drooping form and the knowledge that here was the heir to old Adeline's fortune might have produced other nervous breakdowns. As it was, the talk rolled on and on without even the insignificant let or hindrance of his presence. Augusta was shortly returning to England. Never again would she endure another Canadian winter. She had had the good fortune not to have been born in Canada. She had no intention of dying there of the cold. This she affirmed with the thermometer at eighty-five degrees in the last fever of summer. She urged her brothers to return with her for a visit.
Meg thought that a talk from Mr. Fennel would be
