In the park beyond a
cuckoo was calling.
She was conscious both of the forlorn beauty and significance of the
neglected garden, and of the clear quaintness of the cuckoo call, as she
thought of other things.
"Her spirit and her health are broken," was her summing up. "Her
prettiness has faded to a rag. She is as nervous as an ill-treated
child. She has lost her wits. I do not know where to begin with her.
I must let her tell me things as gradually as she chooses. Until I see
Nigel I shall not know what his method with her has been. She looks as
if she had ceased to care for things, even for herself. What shall I
write to mother?"
She knew what she should write to her father. With him she could be
explicit. She could record what she had found and what it suggested
to her. She could also make clear her reason for hesitance and
deliberation. His discretion and affection would comprehend the thing
which she herself felt and which affection not combined with discretion
might not take in. He would understand, when she told him that one of
the first things which had struck her, had been that Rosy herself, her
helplessness and timidity, might, for a period at least, form obstacles
in their path of action.
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