upon her own soul and her
serenity was restored.

Not pausing to review those amazing moments of inner tumult, she stepped
again to the door and with her old, careless, mildly amused laugh she
beat upon it, loudly this time. She heard an inarticulate call from the
studio, and again she assaulted the panel. Then the curtain was drawn
aside and Ewing stared at her from the doorway.

"I believe you were sleeping," she started to say, but he came quickly
to her with something between a laugh and a shout.

"Then it's true, it _is_ true--you're real! I just dreamed that you
became Ben Crider and made me walk in the middle of the street." He
fairly rushed her into the studio and waved excitedly to the open
trunks.

"There! I began to pack last night so I could see it when I woke up and
have a proof that things were true. I didn't sleep at all till about
eight this morning."

She sat on the couch, feeling that she was foolish beyond measure to
avoid the eyes of the portrait. Then she smiled at him with an effort to
recover the amused ascendancy of their first meetings.

"It's all true, I assure you, and I wonder if you'd mind taking charge
of me when you go East. My brother has suggested it, and I'll promise
not to be a trouble."

His look of wondering delight was so utterly boyish, his helpless
laughter so entirely without reserve that she regained for the moment
her old easy dominance.

"Would I mind--mind going with you? That's a joke, isn't it?" He seized
both her hands in a grasp from which she caught some thrill of his
deep-breathed, electric joy.

"But of course this is nonsense," he went on; "I'm still lying there."

"Enough of dreams," she broke in warningly. "You'll find it only too,
too real. You're going to work. It's simple."

He sat down on one of the trunks, trying to subdue his excitement, his
hands clenched.

"If this feeling lasts I can do anything, _anything_, you understand,
learn everything, do everything, be everything. I have power. Ever since
you left yesterday I've felt full of steel springs, all tightly coiled.
Only I must be careful. If they went off all at once there'd be an
explosion, and I'm afraid I couldn't ever be repaired."

She grimaced with an effort at mock dismay which was not wholly
successful. She divined the literal truth under his jesting. The springs
were coiled and their steel was not too well tempered, she believed. The
thought left a shadow on her face.

"You're n