est delirium was speaking in
her ear.

"The goblins are all gone, dear," she heard him say. "Don't be
frightened."

He led her gently to a sofa and made her sit down, bending over her
and softly rubbing her cold cheek.

"Tell me when you're better," he said, "and we'll talk this thing out.
But don't be frightened anyway. It's all right."

The tenderness of voice and touch, the sudden cessation of all
tension, the swift putting to flight of her fear, all combined to
produce in her a sense of relief so immense that the last shred of her
self-control went from her utterly. She laid her head down upon the
cushions and burst into a storm of tears.

Nick's hand continued to stroke and soothe, but he said no more while
her paroxysm of weeping lasted. He who was usually so ready of speech,
so quick to console, found for once no words wherewith to comfort her.

Only when her distress had somewhat spent itself, he bent a little
lower and dried her tears with his own handkerchief, his lips
twitching as he did it, his eyes flickering so rapidly that it was
impossible to read their expression.

"There!" he said at last. "There's nothing to cry about. Finish what
you were saying when I interrupted you. I think you were in the middle
of throwing me over, weren't you? At least, you had got through that
part of it, and were just going to tell me why."

His tone was reassuringly flippant.

Looking up at him, she saw the old kindly, quizzical look on his face.
He met her eyes, nodding shrewdly.

"Let's have it," he said, "straight from the shoulder. You're tired of
me, eh?"

She drew back from him, but with no gesture of shrinking. "I'm tired
of everything--everything," she said, a little passionate quiver in
her voice. "I wish--I wish with all my heart, you had left me to die."

"Is that the grievance?" said Nick. He sat down on the head of the
sofa, and drove his fist into the cushion. "If I could explain things
to you, I would. But you're such a chicken, aren't you, dear, and
about as easily scared? Since when have you harboured this grudge
against me?"

The gentle banter of his tone did not deceive her into imagining that
she could trifle with him, nor was she addicted to trifling. She
made answer with a certain warmth of indignation that seemed to have
kindled on its own initiative and wholly without her volition.

"I haven't, I don't. I'm not so absurd. It isn't that at all."

"You're not tired of me?" queried Ni