ill be, at
intervals, now. This young lady behaved admirably--admirably! The thing
to do is to wait."

He glanced at Shiela, hesitated, then:

"Would it be any comfort to learn that he knew you?"

"Yes.... Thank you."

The doctor nodded and said in a hearty voice: "Oh, we've got to pull him
through somehow. That's what I'm here for." And he went away briskly
across the lawn.

"What are you going to do?" asked Constance in a low voice.

"I don't know; write to my father, I think."

"You ought not to sit up after such a journey."

"Do you suppose I could sleep _to-night_?"

Constance drew her into her arms; the girl clung to her, head hidden on
her breast.

"Shiela, Shiela," she murmured, "you can always come to me. Always,
always!--for Garry's sake.... Listen, child: I do not understand your
tragedy--his and yours--I only know you loved each other.... Love--and a
boy's strange ways in love have always been to me a mystery--a sad one,
Shiela.... For once upon a time--there was a boy--and never in all my
life another. Dear, we women are all born mothers to men--and from birth
to death our heritage is motherhood--grief for those of us who
bear--sadness for us who shall never bear--mothers to sorrow
everyone.... Do you love him?"

"Yes."

"That is forbidden you, now."

"It was forbidden me from the first; yet, when I saw him I loved him.
What was I to do?"

Constance waited, but the girl had fallen silent.

"Is there more you wish to tell me?"

"No more."

She bent and kissed the cold cheek on her shoulder.

"Don't sit up, child. If there is any reason for waking you I will come
myself."

"Thank you."

So they parted, Constance to seek her room and lie down partly dressed;
Shiela to the new quarters still strange and abhorrent to her.

Her maid, half dead with fatigue, slept in a chair, and young Mrs.
Malcourt aroused her and sent her off to bed. Then she roamed through
the rooms, striving to occupy her mind with the negative details of the
furnishing; but it was all drearily harmless, unaccented anywhere by
personal taste, merely the unmeaning harmony executed by a famous New
York decorator, at Portlaw's request--a faultless monotony from garret
to basement.

There was a desk in one room; ink in the well, notepaper bearing the
name of Portlaw's camp. She looked at it and passed on to her bedroom.

But after she had unlaced and, hair unbound, stood staring vacantly
about her, she remembered t