ads any extra demands on
her. I knew you stayed on to look after the business here, of course....
You know the dear, blind, old Professor. Naturally you are the person to
look after her, and I thought it would be just like her not to say a
word to you about it all, so here I am, playing tame cat, carrying
tales. Go down to-night, Jocelyn, and take that girl away somewhere."

"They think she's ill?" Jarvis repeated.

"She looks it to me. If she were my wife, I'd be alarmed."

He rose as he finished, and Jarvis rose, too. They looked each other in
the eyes.

"Thank you!" said Jarvis.

He suddenly realized, without words of any kind, that this man suffered
as he did, because he, too, loved Bambi. He was big enough to come to
her husband with news of her need. By a common impulse their hands met
in a warm hand-clasp.

"She needs you, Jocelyn," Strong said.

"You're a good friend, Strong," Jarvis answered.

When he had gone, Jarvis hurried to his room and began to pack his bag.
His heart beat like a trip-hammer with excitement. He was going to
Bambi! She needed him. He had endured a week of the third degree,
practised upon himself. He had peered into every nook and corner of his
own soul. He knew himself for a blind, selfish egotist. He was ready now
to fling his winter garments of repentance into the fires of spring. He
understood himself, though Bambi baffled him more than ever. Never mind.
She needed him. Strong said so--and he was going to her.

He was at the station an hour before the train left, pacing up and down
the platform like an angry lion. Aboard the sleeper, and on the way, he
tossed and turned in his berth in wakefulness. At dawn he was up and
dressed, to sit in a fever of impatience while the landscape slowly slid
by the car window.

At Sunnyside he hurried along the deserted street, where only the
milkman wound his weary way in the early morning. There was a hint of
spring in the air, fresh and exhilarating, with a faint earth smell.

The house lay, with closed blinds, still asleep. He let himself in with
his latch-key, dropped his bag, hat, and coat in the hall, and rushed
upstairs to Bambi's rooms. No hesitation now. He would storm the citadel
in truth. He opened her bedroom door softly and peered in. It was
unknown country to him. The bed was empty. He entered and walked swiftly
to the door beyond, where he heard a faint crackling, as of a fire
burning. At the door he paused.

She was crouc