cry--a cry of interrogation it might be called. Below
there was the noise of Perfetta returning with the baby's milk.

"Go to him," said Miss Abbott, indicating Philip. "Pick him up. Treat
him kindly."

She released him, and he approached Philip slowly. His eyes were filling
with trouble. He bent down, as if he would gently raise him up.

"Help! help!" moaned Philip. His body had suffered too much from Gino.
It could not bear to be touched by him.

Gino seemed to understand. He stopped, crouched above him. Miss Abbott
herself came forward and lifted her friend in her arms.

"Oh, the foul devil!" he murmured. "Kill him! Kill him for me."

Miss Abbott laid him tenderly on the couch and wiped his face. Then she
said gravely to them both, "This thing stops here."

"Latte! latte!" cried Perfetta, hilariously ascending the stairs.

"Remember," she continued, "there is to be no revenge. I will have no
more intentional evil. We are not to fight with each other any more."

"I shall never forgive him," sighed Philip.

"Latte! latte freschissima! bianca come neve!" Perfetta came in with
another lamp and a little jug.

Gino spoke for the first time. "Put the milk on the table," he said.
"It will not be wanted in the other room." The peril was over at last.
A great sob shook the whole body, another followed, and then he gave a
piercing cry of woe, and stumbled towards Miss Abbott like a child and
clung to her.

All through the day Miss Abbott had seemed to Philip like a goddess, and
more than ever did she seem so now. Many people look younger and more
intimate during great emotion. But some there are who look older, and
remote, and he could not think that there was little difference in
years, and none in composition, between her and the man whose head was
laid upon her breast. Her eyes were open, full of infinite pity and
full of majesty, as if they discerned the boundaries of sorrow, and saw
unimaginable tracts beyond. Such eyes he had seen in great pictures but
never in a mortal. Her hands were folded round the sufferer, stroking
him lightly, for even a goddess can do no more than that. And it seemed
fitting, too, that she should bend her head and touch his forehead with
her lips.

Philip looked away, as he sometimes looked away from the great pictures
where visible forms suddenly become inadequate for the things they have
shown to us. He was happy; he was assured that there was greatness in
the world. There came to