TABLE OF CONTENTS

       COVER

       TITLE PAGE

       ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       ENDPAGE

       COPYRIGHT

       CHAPTER ONE

      A FEW flakes of snow were drifting down from a leaden sky as Rachel Crichton paid off the taxi, and ran up the shallow flight of steps to the front door. Her urgent ring at the bell was answered almost immediately by a tall thin woman in a neat dark dress, a smile of thankfulness relieving the anxiety in her face.

      ‘Oh, Miss Rachel, you’ve come at last! He’s been asking and asking for you. Dr Kingston wants to move him to the Mordaunt Clinic, and he won’t go. Said he had to see you first. He’s been getting himself in a real state—and Miss Rachel, he mustn’t!’

      ‘I know.’ Rachel gave the housekeeper’s hand a comforting squeeze. Even after twenty years, Mrs Thurston still had not been able to come to terms with Sir Giles Crichton’s arrogant refusal to allow any denial of his wishes. ‘I came as soon as I got your message. How—how is he?’ She made a little helpless gesture. ‘This is the last thing I was expecting. He seemed to have got over the last attack …’

      She paused, and saw Mrs Thurston give a little shake of her head.

      ‘It’s bad this time, Miss Rachel, the worst yet. That’s why Doctor Kingston wants to move him. He told him to his face that he couldn’t be trusted to rest properly here.’ She swallowed. ‘I was with him when it happened, and I thought we were going to lose him, that I did.’

      ‘Oh, Thursty!’ Rachel stared at her in dismay. ‘It must have been awful for you. I should have been here—the play closed over a week ago.’

      ‘It wouldn’t have made much difference.’ Mrs Thurston seemed to rouse herself from her anxiety, and moved to help Rachel off with her coat. ‘Sir Giles has hardly been here himself for the past fortnight. He’s been backwards and forwards to London nearly every day. He even spent the night there one day last week. And when I tried to remind him of what the doctor had said, he nearly bit my head off. I said no more, naturally, but I’m wondering now whether, if I hadn’t given up so easily, this might have been avoided.’

      ‘I don’t think so, Thursty darling. And you’re not to blame yourself.’ Rachel gave a soft sigh. ‘We both know what Grandfather’s like when he’s got the bit between his teeth. But what can he have been doing in London? Did he give no hint?’

      ‘None at all, Miss Rachel.’ The older woman hesitated. ‘But he seemed—different. More like his old self. I wondered if it might have something to do with Mr Mark.’

      ‘I don’t think so, Thursty,’ Rachel said gently. ‘But we can always hope. Now, I’d better go up.’

      She ran up the broad, shallow flight of stairs which led to the first floor bedrooms, and turned along the landing to the big double doors of the room situated at the far end. As she approached they opened, and a slight grey-haired man emerged. He looked tired and anxious, but his eyes lit up when he saw her, and he laid a finger conspiratorially over his lips, glancing back towards the room he had left.

      ‘Uncle Andrew?’ she whispered. ‘How is he?’

      ‘No worse, but certainly no better either,’ he said quietly. ‘Your arrival should help. He’s under sedation, and I rely on you, Rachel, not to allow him to get excited in any way. Now that you’re here I’ll go and arrange about that ambulance.’ He patted her cheek and went on past her towards the stairs.

      It was very warm in the bedroom. A fire had been kindled in the old-fashioned grate, and its leaping flames together with a shaded bedside lamp provided all the light in the room.

      Her grandfather lay back against the pillows, his eyes closed. He was very pale, and there was a bluish tinge around his mouth which frightened her, but she was careful not to let the fright show as she trod across the carpet, her slender feet noiseless in their low-heeled shoes. There was a chair close beside the bed, and she sat down on it, waiting for him to open his eyes and notice her there, unwilling to disturb him purposely.

      At last his eyes did open, still fiercely blue, but with some of their former fire dimmed. For a moment Sir Giles gazed at her almost without recognition, then his glance sharpened and focussed, and he said, ‘So you’re here at last.’

      Rachel tried to ignore the implied reproach in his words of greeting, to forget that if he’d been backwards and forwards to London as Mrs Thurston had said, there had been plenty of opportunities for him to contact her if he’d wanted—opportunities that had remained neglected. She tried to forget too that the reproach had always been there, ever since, in fact, the longed-for first grandchild had been born a girl instead of the boy he had set his heart on, and had not been alleviated even with Mark’s birth some two and a half years later.

      She bent over the bed and put her lips to his cheek. ‘I’m here, Grandfather. Can I get you a drink or anything?’

      ‘No, child.’ The effort of speaking seemed to be using up his breath at an alarming rate, she thought. ‘Just—listen.’

      He closed his eyes