inute, Len." She turned back, to see the musician,
his bow faltering, suddenly lower his violin and lean against his
patron, who had leaped to his support. A minute later Burns had him
stretched upon the blue couch, and had laid his fingers on the bony
wrist.

"Hang me for a simpleton, to feed him like that he's probably not tasted
solid food for days. The reaction is too much, of course. He's been
playing on his nerve for the last ten minutes, and I, like an idiot,
thought it was his emotional temperament."

He ran out of the room and returned with a wine glass filled with
liquid, which he administered, his arm under the ragged shoulders. Then
he patted the wasted cheek, gone suddenly white except where the excited
colour still showed in faint patches.

"You'll be all right, son," he said, smiling down into the frightened
eyes, and his tone if not his words seemed to carry reassurance, for the
eyes closed with a weary flutter and the gripping fingers relaxed.

"He's completely done," Burns said pityingly. He took one hand in his
own and held it in his warm grasp, at which the white lids unclosed
again, and the sensitive lips tried to smile.

"I'd no business to let him play so long--I might have known. Poor boy,
he's starved for other things than food. Do you suppose anybody's held
his hand like this since he left the old country? He thought he'd find
wealth and fame in the new one--and this is what he found!"

Ellen stood looking at the pair--her brawny husband, himself "completely
done" an hour before, now sitting on the edge of the couch with his new
patient's hand in his, his face wearing an expression of keen interest,
not a sign of fatigue in his manner; the exhausted young foreigner in
his ragged clothing lying on the luxurious couch, his pale face standing
out like a fine cameo against the blue velvet of the pillow under his
dark head. If a thought of possible contamination for her home's
belongings entered her mind it found no lodgment there, so pitiful was
her heart.

"Is the room ready upstairs?" Burns asked presently, when he had again
noted the feeble action of the pulse under his fingers. "What he needs
is rest and sleep, and plenty of both. Like the most of us he's kept up
while he had to, and now he's gone to pieces absolutely. To-morrow we
can send him to the hospital, perhaps, but for to-night--"

"The room is ready. I sent Cynthia up at once."

"Bless you, you never fail me, do you? Well--w