ng into his
eyes; "and it crept right in and I was alone with it."

"What do you fear?" he asked, tenderly.

"The Grey Dawn," she said, glancing round at the window. "I was never
afraid of anything, never, when I was a little child, but I have always
been afraid of that. You will not let it come in to me?"

"No, no; I will stay with you," he continued.

But she was growing calmer. "No, you must go to bed. I only awoke with a
start; you must be tired. I am childish, that is all;" but she shivered
again.

He sat down beside her, after some time she said: "Will you not rub my
feet?"

He knelt down at the foot of the bed and took the tiny foot in his hand;
it was swollen and unsightly now, but as he touched it he bent down and
covered it with kisses.

"It makes it better when you kiss it; thank you. What makes you all love
me so?" Then dreamily she muttered to herself: "Not utterly bad, not
quite bad--what makes them all love me so?"

Kneeling there, rubbing softly, with his cheek pressed against the
little foot, Gregory dropped to sleep at last. How long he knelt there
he could not tell; but when he started up awake she was not looking at
him. The eyes were fixed on the far corner, gazing wide and intent, with
an unearthly light.

He looked round fearfully. What did she see there? God's angels come
to call her? Something fearful? He saw only the purple curtain with
the shadows that fell from it. Softly he whispered, asking what she saw
there.

And she said, in a voice strangely unlike her own: "I see the vision of
a poor, weak soul striving after good. It was not cut short, and in the
end it learnt, through tears and much pain, that holiness is an infinite
compassion for others; that greatness is to take the common things of
life and walk truly among them; that"--She moved her white hand and laid
it on her forehead--"happiness is a great love and much serving. It was
not cut short; and it loved what it had learnt--it loved--and--"

Was that all she saw in the corner?

Gregory told the landlady the next morning that she had been wandering
all night. Yet, when he came in to give her her breakfast, she was
sitting up against the pillows, looking as he had not seen her look
before.

"Put it close to me," she said, "and when I have had breakfast I am
going to dress."

She finished all he had brought her eagerly.

"I am sitting up quite by myself," she said. "Give me his meat;" and she
fed the dog herself, c