She felt that he was talking merely to keep her from worrying, and she was fairly sick with anxiety and did not hear half of what he was saying.

She was nervously careful about choosing her steps so that she would not stumble and jolt her father.

She did not believe that he was wholly unconscious, for she had seen his eyelids tighten and his lips twitch several times, when she was waiting for Swan.

He had seemed to be in pain and to be trying to hide the fact from her.

She felt that Swan knew it, else he would have talked of her dad, would at least have tried to reassure her.