bedroom, taken
up a duster to begin the morning's work and, after five minutes, idly
lifting each thing in her hand, she had seated herself by the side
of the bed, allowing the duster to fall limply from her fingers. Then,
throwing herself on to the pillows, had given way with tearless eye
to her despair.

When Janet's knock fell, she was lying in bed, eyes gaping at the
ceiling above her in a gaze that scarcely wandered or moved from the
spot upon which they were fixed. At the unexpected sound, she sat
up. Intelligence struggled for the mastery in her mind. There, in
her eyes, you could see it fight for victory.

"Who's that?" she called out querulously in a thin voice.

"Janet! Do you mean to say you're not up yet?"

"No."

"Well, come and unlock the door. I can't get in."

Sally drove the energy into her limbs with an effort and tumbled from
the bed. As her feet touched the floor, she lurched forward with
weakness. She clutched at the clothes and held herself erect; but
her knees trembled, knocking together like wooden clubs that are
shaken by reckless vibration.

With a little moan of weakness she stumbled to the door, holding to
the end of the bed, the back of a chair, the handle of the door in
her uncertain progress.

As soon as she heard the key turned, Janet entered and found Sally
in her night-dress, a white ghost of what she was, swinging
unsteadily before her--so a dead body, swung from a gallows, eddies
in a lifting wind.

"Sally!" she exclaimed.

Sally stared at her. Her dry lips half-parted to make Janet's name.
Her eyes, burnt out in the deep black hollows, flickered with a light
of thankful recognition. Then she swung forward, a dead weight on
to Janet's shoulder.

For a moment, Janet held her there, looking over the shoulders that
crumbled against her thin breast, at the disordered room before her.
She saw the crusts of bread, she saw the bed-clothes hanging to the
floor. She gazed down at the unkempt head of hair that dragged
lifelessly on her shoulder, and her eyes were wide in bewildered
amazement.

"Great God!" she exclaimed.

And she realized how inadequate that was.

CHAPTER II

For three weeks Janet stayed with her, sleeping with her, arms
tight-locked about her yielding body as they had often slept together
in the days at Kew. With her own hands, she fed her; in the warmth
of her big, generous heart, she nursed her back to life, as you revive
some little bird, sta