Ella was standing waiting for her outside the open door of a drawing
room. She was wearing a lovely evening dress with a corsage of white
lace covered with diamonds and sapphires. Her hair--it was of the
darkest brown and was very plentiful--was also glittering with gems
under the light that flowed through the open door. The same light showed
Phyllis how deathly white Ella's face and neck were--how tumultuously
her bosom was heaving. She had one hand pressed to her side, and the
other on the handle of the door when Phyllis met her; and in that
attitude, even though the expanse of white flesh, with its gracious
curves that forced out her bodice, had no roseate tint upon it, she
looked lovely--intoxicating to the eyes of men.

Phyllis was certainly surprised. The hour was scarcely eleven, but Ella
had given no notice of her intention to pay a visit to her friend that
night. When the girl raised her hands with a laugh of admiration, of
pleasure, Ella grasped her hands with both of her own and drew her into
the drawing room without a word. Then with a cry,--a laugh and a cry
mingled,--she literally flung herself into the girl's arms and kissed
her convulsively a dozen times, on the throat, on the neck, on the
shoulder whereon her head lay.

"My darling, my darling!" she cried,--and now and again her voice was
broken with a sob,--"my darling Phyllis! I have come to you--I want to
be with you--to be near you--to keep my arms about you, so tightly that
no one can pluck us asunder. Oh, you don't know what men are--they
would pluck us asunder if they could; but they can't now. With you I
am safe--that is why I have come to you, my Phyllis. I want to be
safe--indeed I do!"

She had now raised her head from Phyllis' shoulder, but was still
holding her tightly--a hand on each of her arms, and her face within an
inch of the girl's face.

Phyllis kissed her softly on each cheek.

"My poor dear!" she said, "what can have happened to you?"

"Nothing--nothing! I tell you that nothing has happened to me," cried
Ella, with a vehemence that almost amounted to fierceness in her voice.
"Would I be here with you now if anything had happened to me? tell me
that. I came to you--ah! women have no guardian angels, but they
have sisters who are equally good and pure, and you are my sister--my
sister--better than all the angels that ever sang a dirge over a lost
soul that they put forth no hand to save. You will not let me go,
darling Ph