dge her until you
know her. Wait."

He hurried out of the room.

Hilaire stood on the hearth with his back to the fire. He repeated his
formula, but there was a not unkindly light in his tired eyes, and
when presently the door was opened and the girl came in he smiled.

The club foot, of which he was nervously conscious at times, held him
to his place, but she came forward until she was close to him.

"You are his brother," she began. "I--what a good fire."

She knelt down on the bear skin and stretched her hands to the blaze.
Hilaire noticed that she was excessively thin; the rose-flushed cheeks
were hollow and the curves of the sweet cleft chin too sharp. He
looked at her as she crouched at his feet; the nape of the slim neck
showed a very pure white against the shabby black of her dress, there
were fine threads of gold in the soft brown tangle of her hair.

Jean was dragging one of the great armchairs closer.

"You are cold," he said anxiously. "Come and sit here."

She rose obediently.

"Have you had any dinner?" asked Hilaire.

"Yes; they brought me some soup in my room. I am not hungry now."

She spoke very simply, like a child. Jean had rifled all the other
chairs to provide her with a sufficiency of cushions, and now he
brought her a footstool.

"I think I must take my shoes off," she said. "So cold--you see they
let the water in, and--"

"Take them off at once," ordered Hilaire, and he watched, still with
that faint smile in his eyes, as Jean knelt to do his bidding.

"That's very nice," sighed the girl. "I never knew before that real
happiness is just having lots to eat and being warm."

The two men looked at each other.

"I have often wondered about you," she said to Hilaire presently.
"Your eyes are just like his. I think if I had known that I should
have had to come before; but you see I promised Cardinal Jacopo of
Portugal--in San Miniato--that I would not. What am I talking about?"
Her voice broke and she covered her face with her hands.

"Oh, my God!" Jean would have gone to her, but his brother laid a
restraining hand on his arm.

"Leave her alone," he said. "She will be all right to-morrow. It's
only excitement, nervous exhaustion. She must rest and eat. Wait
quietly and don't look at her."

Jean moved restlessly about the room; Hilaire, gravely silent, seemed
to see nothing.

So the two men waited until the girl was able to control her sobs.

"I am so sorry," she said presen