ward with a
rebuke that would end the mad episode on the spot. But just then the
moon swung slowly out from some prisoning cloud, flooding the hillside
with light, and as Ted saw Lisbeth's face, he forgot his intention of
remonstrance and could but stand and gaze.

For a moment he thought that the woman before him could not be Crazy
Lisbeth at all, and then he thought that the moonlight tricked him.
But of one thing he was sure; be the cause what it might, he saw a
Lisbeth magically and beautifully changed. Foolish and pathetic and
middle-aged she had been only yesterday, but to-night love and joy had
had their way with her for a little while and had transformed her
almost into youth and comeliness again. Unconscious of Ted's watchful
and hostile presence, as she had been from the first, she turned to
Sheila with a simple and moving tenderness:

"Come," she said, opening her gate.

But Sheila stood motionless, her face soft with a pity that could no
longer protect.

"Come," urged Lisbeth, "come, darling precious! This is home!"

But Sheila did not stir. "I--I can't," she answered gently.

"You can't? _You can't_? Oh, it's been a dream!--a dream!--a dream!
You're not real--you're never real! I see you--and see you--and see
you! _But when I reach you, you're not real--not real_! I believed it
was different this time--but it's always the same! _You're not real_!"

And with that despairing cry, the Lisbeth whom Ted knew so well stood
there before him again, old and foolish and piteous, whimpering softly
and plucking at her ragged dress.

Sheila put her hand on the bent shoulder--bent to its long burden. "I
_am_ real," said the child in a clear, steadfast voice that somehow,
penetrated Lisbeth's sad whimsies, "I _am_ real!--and I'll come back!"

"You'll come back?" And Lisbeth ceased her whimpering and laid
pleading hold on her. "You'll come back? I don't believe you're real
now--I _can't_ believe it any more! But I don't mind that if you'll
come back anyway. You will? You promise?"

"I promise," answered Sheila. "If you are good--if you go straight
into the house--I'll come back."

Lisbeth looked at her for an instant with an odd shrewdness in her poor
foolish face. Then she nodded, evidently satisfied with what she saw.
"I'll be good," she agreed. "I'll go in. Oh, my pretty darling! My
dearest precious! Lisbeth will be good!" And after a quick clasping
of Sheila, she went obediently in