lk of
god-head--"why, I know it's so, too. An' I sha'n't ever be afraid any
more. I sha'n't ever feel alone."

"But Tira," he felt himself saying to her weakly, "I feel alone."

Did he actually say it, he wondered. No, for he lifted his face from his
shielding hand and turned miserable eyes upon her, and her eyes met him
clearly. Yet they were deeper, softer, moved by a sad compassion. There
was something patiently maternal in them, as if she had found herself
again before the old sad question of man's uncomprehended desires. She
spoke, strangely he thought then, and afterward he wondered if she
actually had said the thing at all.

"There's nothin' in the world I wouldn't do for you, not if 'twas
anyways right. But----" and again she gave that fleeting glance of
allegiance to the child.

He tried impatiently to pull himself together. She must see there was
something hideous in his inability to make her safe, something stupid,
also.

"Tira," he said, "you don't understand. Sometimes I think you don't
realize what might happen to you. And it's silly to let it happen,
foolish, ignorant. If some one told you there was a man outside your
door and he wanted to kill you, you'd lock the door. Now there's a man
inside your house, inside your room, that wants to kill you. Yes, he
does," he insisted, answering the denial in her face, "when he's got one
of his brain storms. Is there anything to pride yourself on in staying
to be killed?"

She answered first with a smile, the sweet reassurance of a confident
look.

"He won't," she said, "he won't try to kill me, or kill him"--she made a
movement of the hand toward the couch--"no, not ever. You know why? I'm
goin' to remind him Who's in the room."

"Why didn't you remind him this time?" Raven queried, pushed to the
cynical logic of it. "You could have turned his own words against him.
It wasn't an hour since he'd said it himself."

"Because," she answered, in a perfect good faith, "then I didn't know
'twas so."

"Didn't know 'twas so? Why didn't you?"

Her eyes were large with wonder.

"Because," she said, "then you hadn't told me."

Raven stared at her a full minute, realizing to the full the exact
measure of his lie coming back to him.

"Tira," said he, "I believe you're not quite bright."

"No," said she simply, with no apparent feeling, "I guess I ain't. 'Most
everybody's told me so, first or last."

It sobered him.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I didn't