,
her temples and cheeks cruelly thin. But what hurt him most were not the
marks of illness and weakness. It was the harassed look. Fear.

_Fear_--that thing so invaluable in building character.

Thought of the needlessness of it wrung from him: "Ann--how could you!"

"Why I thought I was doing right," she murmured. "I thought I was
being kind."

He smiled faintly, sadly, at the irony and the bitter pity of that.

"But how could you think that?" he pressed. "Not that it matters now--but
I don't see how you could."

She looked at him strangely. "Do you--know?"

He nodded.

"Then don't you see? I left to make it easy for Katie."

He thought of Katie's summer. "Well your success in that direction was
not brilliant," he said with his old dryness.

Her eyes looked so hurt that he stroked her hand reassuringly, as he
would have stroked Worth's had he hurt him. And as he touched her--it
was a hot hand he touched--it struck him as absurd to be quibbling
about why she had gone. She was there. He had found her. That was all
that mattered.

He became more and more conscious of how much it mattered. He wanted to
draw her to him and tell her how much it mattered. But he did
not--dared not.

"And how did you happen to be so unkind as to call me up, Ann?" he asked
with a faint smile.

"I wanted--I wanted to hear about Katie. And I wanted"--her eyes had
filled, her chin was trembling--"I was lonesome. I wanted to hear
your voice."

His heart leaped. For the moment he was not able to keep the tenderness
from his look.

"And I knew you were there because I saw it in the paper. A woman brought
back some false hair to be exchanged--I sell false hair," said Ann, with
a wan little smile and unconsciously touching her own hair--"and what she
wanted exchanged--though we don't exchange it--was wrapped up in a
newspaper, and as I looked down at it I happened to see your name. Wasn't
that funny?"

"Very humorous," he replied, almost curtly.

"I had been sick all day--oh, for lots of days. But I was trying to keep
on. I had lost two other places by staying away for being sick--and I
didn't dare--just didn't dare--lose this one. You don't know how
_afraid_ you get--how frightened you are--when you're afraid you're
going to be sick."

The fear--sick fear that fear of sickness can bring--that was in her eyes
as she talked of it suddenly infuriated him. He did not know what or whom
he I was furious at--but it was on Ann it bro