noon
Too weak to fret against enforced inaction at a time of stress , Wyndham passed his days between sleeping and waking and eating ; between rare talks with Lenox and Desmond , and the restfulness diffused through heart and brain and body by Honor 's constant presence at his bedside . She had amply fulfilled the promise given him more than four years ago of close and privileged friendship ; and he counted himself more blest in its possession than many a man who wins the entire woman , to find her no more than a plaster goddess after all . Honor herself , apart from the natural woman 's pleasure in nursing an appreciative patient , was thankful for a definite demand upon her time . For Theo was seldom available now , except for an occasional after-dinner drive , through darkness two degrees cooler than high noon ; and beneath her surface serenity she suffered keenly from the ache of empty arms ; from the completeness of separation involved in leaving a child too young to span distance even by hieroglyphs , profusely decorated with ` kisses , ' such as she had seen women treasure in the days of her young ignorance . Mrs Rivers wrote constantly and copiously . But can the most unwearied pen set down all that a mother craves to know about her child ? At the end of a week , Lenox was with them still .