ind," she said harshly.

"So I see," he answered unsteadily.

But of a sudden the fact that he had been drawn to Ann drew her
irresistibly to him. He had been part of all those wonderful days--days
of dream and play, or waking and wondering. She remembered that other
night they had stood on the porch speaking of Ann--the very night she had
become Ann. That fact that he had accepted her as Ann--cared for
her--made it impossible to harden her heart against him. "Oh Harry," she
said, voice shaking, "I'm sorry. So sorry. It's my fault--and I'm sorry.
I didn't want you to be hurt. I didn't want--anybody to be hurt."

Some one called to him and he had to turn away. She stepped into the
shadow and had a moment to herself.

What did it _mean_--she wondered. That one was indeed bound hand and foot
and brain and heart and spirit?

What had she done save prove that she could do nothing?

Ann had been driven away. And in her house now were Zelda Fraser and
Caroline Osborne and Major Darrett and all those others who were not
dreamers of dreams. And the dream betrayed--she felt one with _them_.

For she had turned the dream out of doors with Ann: the wonderful dream
which sheltered the heart of reality, dream through which waking had
come, from which all the long dim paths of wondering had opened--dream
through which self had called.

And what was there left?

A house of hollow laughter was left--of pretense--"stunts"--of prescribed
rules and intolerance with all breakers of rules even though the breakers
of rules were dreamers of dreams.

With a barely repressed sob she remembered what Ann had said in her story
of her dog. "I could have stood my own lonesomeness. But what I couldn't
stand was thinking about him.... I couldn't keep from thinking things
that tortured me."

It was that gnawed at the heart of it.... How go to bed that night
without knowing that Ann had a bed? She had loved Ann because Ann needed
her, been tender to her because Ann was her charge. She yearned for her
now in fearing for her. More sickening than the pain of having failed was
the pain of wondering where Ann would get her breakfast. Tears which she
had been able to hold back even under the shame of her infidelity came
uncontrollably with the simple thought that she might never do Ann's hair
for her again.

It seemed to Katie then that the one thing she could not do was go back
to her guests.

A boy was coming on a bicycle. He had a letter for