door at the foot of the stairs which led to the music room stood wide
open, but both men came to an involuntary breathless pause outside it.
Then John went in, looked for a brief moment at the figure that slept so
gently in the narrow little bed, gave a reassuring nod to March who had
hung back in the doorway, a nod that invited him in; then turned away and
covered his face with his hands just for one steadying instant until the
shock of that abominable fear should pass away.

When he looked again March stood at the bedside gazing down into the
girl's face. It was as if his presence there were palpable to her. She
opened her eyes sleepily, smiled a fleeting contented smile and held up
her arms to her lover. He smiled, too, and bent down and kissed her. Then
as the arms that had clasped his neck slipped down he straightened,
nodded to John and went back to the door. John followed and for a moment,
outside the room, they talked in whispers.

"I'm going home now," March said. "To my father's house--not the other
place. There's a telephone there if she wants me. But I'll call anyhow
before I go to Ravina this afternoon."

It was he, this time, who held out his hand.

"You can trust her with me in the meantime, I think," John said as he
took it, but the irony of that was softened by a smile. March smiled,
too, and with no more words went away.

Her eyes turned upon John when he came back into the room, wide open but
still full of sleep. When he stood once more beside her bed a pat of her
hand invited him to sit down upon the edge of it.

"He really was here, wasn't he?" she asked. "I wasn't dreaming?"

"No, he was here," John said.

Her eyelids drooped again. "I'm having the loveliest dreams," she told
him. "I suppose I ought to be waking up. What time is it?"

"It's still very early. Only about half past eight. Go back to sleep."

"Have you had breakfast? Pete's wife, out in the garage, will come in and
get it for you."

"When I feel like breakfast, I'll see to it that I get some," he
said, rising.

Once more she roused herself a little. "Stay here, then, for a while,"
she said. "Pull that chair up close."

When he had planted the easy chair in the place she indicated and seated
himself in it she gave him one of her hands to hold. But in another
minute she was fast asleep.

And that, you know, was the hottest, most intolerable sting of all. He
was sore, of course, all over. He had been badly battered during