icked Witch played and danced, and laughed at all his
searching. She would do nothing to help him find the door.

All that day he wandered up stairs and down stairs, or stood at the
window looking down through the green fir branches to the free
forest-floor. Once the Witch offered to tell him stories. But he wanted
no stories of caged things, and those were all the stories she knew. The
Witch did not mind his short answers and dark face. She seemed perfectly
able to have a good time with herself, and needed no comrades.

At last night fell. The rooms blossomed with candlelight. In the yellow
room up stairs the Beautiful Wicked Witch paraded back and forth before
the mirrors, loving her own reflection, smiling at herself, courtesying,
frowning, looking back over her shoulder,--lifting her hair to let it
fall again in electric waves. Eric stood by the window, thoroughly weary
of his search and loneliness, and watched her. The bird sat in the cage
and watched her. All the little bright eyes of animals watched her. The
candles burned steadily.

How Eric longed for Ivra now, and their own big friendly room. He
imagined Ivra in the room there all alone getting her supper over the
fire, bathing in the fountain bath, opening the windows, and at last
falling softly to sleep before the firelight faded.

Oh, if there were only a window open here! How hot it was, and how
over-sweetly scented! The Beautiful Wicked Witch went on posing and
preening before the mirrors, and seemed to have forgotten all about her
new little prisoner.

So he pulled back the yellow satin curtain, and looked out. It was
clear, cold starlight. He pressed his face against the window pane and
stared down into the shadows beneath the fir. And there, standing erect
in the shadow, her face lifted like a pale little moon, stood Ivra.

She saw him, but did not wave. She only nodded, as though she knew now
what she had come to make sure of. She stood still for a few minutes,
until Eric almost thought she was frozen in the cold. But at last she
moved and disappeared under the fir.

Music tinkled through the house. The Beautiful Wicked Witch poised on
her toes, surprisedly looking into the reflection of her own eyes.

"Some one has come in, for that was the door," she said. "It opens
inward with music."

Eric's heart stood still. Had Ivra come into the Witch's house, Ivra who
was so afraid of the Witch? He ran down the stairs and the Witch
followed him. Yes