en--" She paused.

"What happened?" Clara asked breathlessly.

"I dropped. I dropped like a stone. But--but--the instant I let myself
go, something strange happened--a miracle of self-revelation. I knew
that I loved Billy, that I could not live in any world where he could
not come to me. And the instant that I realized that I loved him, I knew
also that I could not die. I tried to spread my wings but they would not
open. It was terrific. And that sense of despair, that my wings which
had always responded--would not--now--oh, that was hell. How I fought!
How I struggled! It was as though iron bands were about me. I strained.
I tore. Of course, all this was only a moment. But one thinks a million
things in a moment like that--one lives a thousand years. It seemed an
eternity. At last my wings opened and spread. They held. I floated until
I caught my breath. Then I dropped slowly. I threw myself over the bough
of a tree. I lay there."

There was an interval of intense silence.

"Did you faint?" Peachy asked in an awed voice.

"I wept."

"You wept, Julia?" Peachy said. "You!"

"I had not wept since my childhood. It was strange. It frightened me
almost as much as the fall. Oh, how fast the tears came--and in such
floods! Something melted and went away from me then. A softness came
over me. It was like a spell. I have never been the same creature since.
I cry easily now."

"Did you tell Billy?" Clara asked.

"He saw me," Julia answered.

"He saw--." It came from her four listeners as from one woman.

"That's what changed him. That's what determined him to help capture
us. He said that he was afraid I would try it again. I wouldn't have,
though."

Nobody spoke for a long time.

"Julia! It was Chiquita who broke the silence this time. There is
something I, too, have always wanted to ask you. But I have never dared
before. What was it tempted you to go into the Clubhouse that day? At
first you tried to keep us from going in. You never seemed to care for
any of the things they gave us. You threw away the fans and the slippers
and the scarfs. And you smashed your mirror."

"Billy asked me this same question once," Julia answered. "It was that
big diamond--the Wilmington 'Blue.' I caught a glimpse of it through the
doorway as it lay all by itself on the table, flashing in the sunlight.
I had never before in my life seen any thing that I really wanted. But
this was so exquisite, so chiseled, so tiny, so perfect, Th