lent.

If only Christine's mother had been here to take the responsibility of
it all, she thought longingly; she had so little influence with
Christine herself. She closed the window and went back to the bedside.

Christine was moving restlessly. As Gladys looked down at her she
began to laugh in her sleep--a little chuckle of unaffected joy.

Gladys smiled, too, involuntarily. She was happy in her dreams, at any
rate, she thought with a sense of relief.

And then suddenly Christine woke with a start. She sat up in bed,
throwing out her arms.

"Jimmy----" But it was a cry of terror, not of joy.
"Jimmy--Jimmy--don't hurt me. . . . oh!"

She was sobbing now--wild, pitiful sobs.

Gladys put her arms round her; she held her tightly.

"It's all right, dear. I'm here--nobody shall hurt you." She stroked
her hair and soothed and kissed her; she held her fast till the sobbing
ceased. Then:

"I've been dreaming," said Christine tremblingly. "I thought"--she
shivered a little--"I thought--thought someone was going to hurt me."

"Nobody can hurt you while I am here; dreams are nothing--nobody
believes in dreams."

Christine did not answer. She had never told Gladys of that one moment
when Jimmy had tried to strike her--when beside himself with passionate
rage and misery he had lifted his hand to strike her.

She fell asleep again, holding her friend's hand.

CHAPTER XIX

A CHANCE MEETING

Two days passed uneventfully away, but Kettering did not come to Upton
House. Christine's first faint resentment and amazement had turned to
anger--an anger which she kept hidden, or so she fondly believed.

She hardly went out. She spent hours curled up on the big sofa by the
window reading, or pretending to read. Gladys wondered how much she
really read of the books which she took one by one from the crowded
library.

The third morning Christine answered Sangster's letter. She wrote very
stiltedly; she said she was sorry to hear that Jimmy was not well, but
no doubt he was all right again by this time. She said she was
enjoying herself in a quiet way, and very much preferred the country to
London.

"I have so many friends here, you see," she added, with a faint hope
that perhaps Sangster would show the letter to Jimmy, and that he would
gather from it that she did not miss him in the very least.

And Sangster did show it to Jimmy; to a rather weak-looking Jimmy,
propped up in an armchair, slowly rec