p between them and laid her cheek
upon Ann's hair. "Poor child," she murmured, and the tears were upon
Ann's soft brown hair. "Poor weary little pilgrim."

CHAPTER XXII

Ann remained in her room all of the next day. Katie encouraged her to do
so, wishing to foster the idea of illness.

It did not need much fostering. She had not gone back to those old days
without leaving with them most of her newly accumulated vitality. But it
was weakness rather than nervousness. Talking to Katie seemed to have
relieved a pressure.

It was Katie who was nervous. It was as if a battery within her had been
charged to its uttermost. She was in some kind of electric communication
with life. She was tingling with the things coming to her.

So charged was she with new big things that it was hard to manage the
affairs of her household as old things demanded they be managed that day.
She told Mrs. Prescott again how sorry she and Ann were that Ann had
given way. Mrs. Prescott received it with self-contained graciousness.
Her one comment was that she trusted when her son decided to marry he
would content himself with a wife who had not gone upon a quest.

Katie smiled and agreed that it might get him a more comfortable wife.

The son himself she tried to avoid. That thing which had tried to shape
itself between her and Ann still remained there, a thing without body
but vaguely outlined between Ann and all other things.

They had not drawn any nearer to it. They let the story rest at the place
where all of life had not been going over the wire.

And Katie told herself that she understood. That Ann was to be judged
by the Something Somewhere she had formed in her heart rather than by
whatever it was life had tardily and ungenerously and unwisely
brought her.

That Ann might still cling to a Something Somewhere--a thing for which
even yet she would keep the heart right--was suggested that afternoon
when Katie told her of Captain Prescott.

She had not meant to tell her. She tried to think she was doing it in
order to know how to meet Harry, but had to admit finally that she did it
for no nobler reason than to see how Ann would take it.

She took it most unexpectedly. "I am sorry," she said simply, "but I do
not care at all for Captain Prescott. I--" She paused, coloring slightly
as she said with a little laugh: "We all like to be liked, don't we,
Katie? And with me--well it meant something just to know I could be
liked--in t