inate young man, he but set his lips and
determined to succeed.

This time, however, he resorted to force instead of persuasion, for,
having placed the tray on a corner of the sill, he filled the spoon with
soup and held it determinedly to the girl's lips. Now, if she moved or
made a fuss, the soup would assuredly be spilled, and no living girl
would voluntarily pour soup over her frock! But Pixie made no fuss.
Meekly, obediently as a little bird, she opened her lips, and swallowed,
and swallowed again and again, until the bowl was emptied of its
contents. There was something so trustful and unconscious about the
action that the young man felt the smart of tears in his eyes--the first
tears he had known for many a long year.

When the soup had been finished he went away again, and came back with a
warm shawl which he had procured from a maid. In wrapping it round the
quiescent figure his hands had accidentally come in contact with hers,
and finding them cold as ice, it seemed the natural thing to chafe them
gently between his own. Quite natural also Pixie appeared to find the
action, for the cold little fingers had tightened affectionately round
his own. It was left to him to flush and feel embarrassed; Pixie
remained placidly unmoved.

The memory of those moments was vivid with Stanor as he stood this
morning looking down on the sleeping girl. All through the three days
of separation her image had pursued him, and he had longed increasingly
to see her again. The tragic incidents of that long night had had more
effect in strengthening his dawning love than many weeks of placid,
uneventful lives. It had brought them heart to heart, soul to soul; all
the little veneers and conventions of society had been thrust aside, and
it seemed to him that the crisis had revealed her altogether sweet and
true.

When a young man is brought suddenly face to face with death, when it is
demonstrated before his eyes that the life of the youngest among us
hangs upon a thread, he is in the mood to appreciate the higher
qualities. Stanor had told himself uneasily that he had been "too
slack," that he had not thought enough about "these things." The
friends with whom he had consorted were mostly careless pleasure-lovers
like himself, but this little girl was made of a finer clay. To live
with her would be an inspiration: she would "pull a fellow together."
... There was, however, to be quite honest, another and less worthy
im