Chapter 30

"It was Lord Coombe who sent the book," said Robin.

She was sitting in the Tower room, watching Dowie open the packages
which had come from London. She herself had opened the one which held
the models and she was holding a tiny film of lawn and fine embroidery
in her hands. Dowie could see that she was quite unconscious that she
loosely held it against her breast as if she were nursing it.

"It's his lordship's way to think of things," the discreet answer came
impersonally.

Robin looked slowly round the small and really quite wonderful room.

"You know I said that, the first night we came here."

"Yes?" Dowie answered.

Robin turned her eyes upon her. They were no longer hollowed, but they
still looked much too large.

"Dowie," she said. "He _knows_ things."

"He always did," said Dowie. "Some do and some don't."

"He _knows_ things--as Donal does. The secret things you can't talk
about--the meaning of things."

She went on as if she were remembering bit by bit. "When we were in the
Wood in the dark, he said the first thing that made my mind begin to
move--almost to think. That was because he _knew_. Knowing things made
him send the book."

The fact was that he knew much of which it was not possible for him to
speak, and in passing a shop window he had been fantastically arrested
by a mere pair of small sleeves--the garment to which they belonged
having by chance so fallen that they seemed to be tiny arms holding
themselves out in surrendering appeal. They had held him a moment or so
staring and then he had gone into the shop and asked for their
catalogue.

"Yes, he knew," Dowie replied.

A letter had been written to London signed by Dowie and the models and
patterns had been sent to the village and brought to the castle by Jock
Macaur. Later there had come rolls of fine flannel and lawn, with
gossamer thread and fairy needles and embroidery floss. Then the sewing
began.

Doctor Benton had gradually begun to look forward to his daily visits
with an interest stimulated by a curiosity become eager. The most casual
looker-on might have seen the change taking place in his patient day by
day and he was not a casual looker-on. Was the improvement to be relied
upon? Would the mysterious support suddenly fail them?

"What in God's name should we do if it did?" he broke out unconsciously
aloud one day when Dowie and he were alone together.

"If it did what, sir?" she asked.

"If it stopped--the dream?"

Dowie understood. By this time she knew that, when he asked questions,
took notes