to her, grimly, "Oh, it's possible, all right."

She colored anew. She resented his manner and that made her collect
herself and ask with dignity what was the best thing to do.

"I presume we'd better take her to the hospital," he said in that short
way. "She's been--horribly treated. She's going to need attention--and
doubtless it would be disagreeable to have her here."

That too she suspected him of finding a satisfaction in saying. She made
a curt inquiry as to whether the girl would be all right there for the
night. He said yes and left saying he would be back in the morning.

She escaped Mrs. Hughes--whom now she understood. She did not go up
again to see Lily; she could not do that then. She was angry with
herself for being unnerved. She told herself that at any other time she
would have been able to deal sensibly with such a situation. But coming
just when things were all opened up like that--old feeling fresh--and
coming from Deane Franklin! She would be quite impersonal, rational, in
the morning. But for a long time she could not go to sleep. Something
had intruded into her guarded places. And the things of life from which
she had withdrawn were here--in her house. It affected her physically,
almost made her sick--this proximity of the things she had shut out of
her life. It was invasion.

And she thought about Lily. She tried not to, but could not help
wondering about her. She wondered how this had happened--what the girl
was feeling. Was there someone she loved? She lay there thinking of how,
just recently, this girl who lived in her house had been going through
those things. It made her know that the things of life were all the time
around one. There was something singularly disturbing in the thought.

Next morning she went up to see Lily. She told herself it was only
common decency to do that, her responsibility to a person in her house.

As she opened the door Lily turned her head and looked at her. When she
saw who it was her eyes went sullen, defiant. But pain was in them too,
and with all the rest something wistful. As she looked at the girl lying
there--in trouble, in pain, she could see Lily, just a little while
before, laughing and singing at her work. Something she had not felt in
years, that she had felt but little in her whole life, stirred in her
heart.

"Well, Lily," she said, uncertainly but not unkindly.

The girl's eyes were down, her face turned a little away. But she could
see th