unken eyes.

"I expect I'm a bore," he said, with a shrug; "and I'd better go to
bed."

Falloden helped him carry up his books and papers. In Otto's room, the
windows were wide open, but there was a bright fire, and Bateson, the
ex-scout, was waiting to help him undress. Falloden asked some questions
about the doctor's orders. Various things were wanted from Oxford. He
undertook to get them in the morning.

When he came back to the sitting-room, he stood some time in a brown
study. He wondered again whether he had any qualifications at all as a
nurse. But he was inclined to think now that Radowitz might be worse off
without him; what Constance had said seemed less unreal; and his effort
of the evening, as he looked back on it, brought him a certain bitter
satisfaction.

* * * * *

The following day, Radowitz came downstairs with the course of the
second movement of his symphony clear before him. He worked feverishly
all day, now writing, now walking up and down, humming and thinking, now
getting but of his piano--a beautiful instrument hired for the
winter--all that his maimed state allowed him to get; and passing hour
after hour, between an ecstasy of happy creation, and a state of
impotent rage with his own helplessness. Towards sunset he was worn out,
and with tea beside him which he had been greedily drinking, he was
sitting huddled over the fire, when he heard some one ride up to the
front door.

In another minute the sitting-room door opened, and a girl's figure in a
riding habit appeared.

"May I come in?" said Connie, flushing rather pink.

Otto sprang up, and drew her in. His fatigue disappeared as though by
magic. He seemed all gaiety and force.

"Come in! Sit down and have some tea! I was so depressed five minutes
ago--I was fit to kill myself. And now you make the room shine--you do
come in like a goddess!"

He busied himself excitedly in putting a chair for her, in relighting
the spirit kettle, in blowing up the fire.

Constance meanwhile stood in some embarrassment with one hand on the
back of a chair--a charming vision in her close fitting habit, and the
same black _tricorne_ that she had worn in the Lathom Woods, at
Falloden's side.

"I came to bring you a book, Otto, the book we talked of yesterday." She
held out a paper-covered volume. "But I mustn't stay."

"Oh, do stay!" he implored her. "Don't bother about Mrs. Grundy. I'm so
tired and so bored. Anybo