"Yes," he said. "Anything."

Phyllis arranged herself more comfortably on the bed, for it looked as
if she had some time to stay, and began the story she knew best, because
her children liked it best, Kipling's "How the Elephant Got His Trunk."
"A long, long time ago, O Best Beloved...."

Allan listened, and, she thought, at times paid attention to the words.
He almost smiled once or twice, she was nearly sure. She went straight
on to another story when the first was done. Never had she worked so
hard to keep the interest of any restless circle of children as she
worked now, sitting up in the pink light in her crepe wrappings, with
her school-girl braids hanging down over her bosom, and Allan
Harrington's agonized golden-brown eyes fixed on her pitying ones.

"You must be tired," he said more connectedly and quietly when she had
ended the second story. "Can't you sit up here by me, propped on the
pillows? And you need a quilt or something, too."

This from an invalid who had been given nothing but himself to think of
this seven years back! Phyllis's opinion of Allan went up very much. She
had supposed he would be very selfish. But she made herself a bank of
pillows, and arranged herself by Allan's side so that she could keep
fast to his hands without any strain, something as skaters hold. She
wrapped a down quilt from the foot of the bed around her mummy-fashion
and went on to her third story. Allan's eyes, as she talked on, grew
less intent--drooped. She felt the relaxation of his hands. She went
monotonously on, closing her own eyes--just for a minute, as she
finished her story.

VIII

"I've overslept the alarm!" was Phyllis's first thought next morning
when she woke. "It must be--" Where was she? So tired, so very tired,
she remembered being, and telling some one an interminable story.... She
held her sleepy eyes wide open by will-power, and found that a silent
but evidently going clock hung in sight. Six-thirty. Then she hadn't
overslept the alarm. But ... she hadn't set any alarm. And she had been
sleeping propped up in a sitting position, half on--why, it was a
shoulder. And she was rolled tight in a terra-cotta down quilt. She sat
up with a jerk--fortunately a noiseless one--and turned to look. Then
suddenly she remembered all about it, that jumbled, excited,
hard-working yesterday which had held change and death and marriage for
her, and which she had ended by perching on "poor Allan Harrington's