hrough something that
was pushing her away from him.

"Let me take his frogship," she said with a nervous laugh. "I'll put him
into a jolly big tub where you can grow all the water-weeds you like,
Scott."

Her brother, surprised and gratified, handed her the bath-towel in the
depths of which reposed the batrachian.

"He's really an interesting fellow, Sis," explained Scott; "he exudes a
sticky, viscous fluid from his pores which is slightly toxic. I'm going
to try it on a Rose-beetle."

Geraldine shuddered, but forced a smile, and, holding the imprisoned one
with dainty caution, bore him to a palatial and porcelain-lined
bath-tub, into which she shook him with determination and a suppressed
shriek.

That night at dinner Scott looked up at his sister with something of
the old-time interest and confidence.

"I was pretty sure you'd take an interest in all these things, sooner or
later. I tell you, Geraldine, it will be half the fun if you'll go into
it with us."

"I want to," said his sister, smiling, "but don't hurry my progress or
you'll scare me half to death."

The tragic necessity for occupation, for interesting herself in
something sufficient to take her out of herself, she now understood, and
the deep longing for the love of all she had of kith and kin was
steadily tightening its grip on her, increasing day by day. Nothing else
could take its place; she began to understand that; not her intimacy
with Kathleen, not even her love for Duane. Outside of these there
existed a zone of loneliness in which she was doomed to wander, a zone
peopled only by the phantoms of the parents she had never known long
enough to remember--a dreaded zone of solitude and desolation and peril
for her. The danger line marked its boundary; beyond lay folly and
destruction.

Little by little Scott began to notice that his sister evidently found
his company desirable, that she followed him about, watching his
so-called scientific pursuits with a curiosity too constant to be
assumed. And it pleased him immensely; and at times he held forth to her
and instructed her with brotherly condescension.

He noticed, too, that her spirits did not appear to be particularly
lively; there were often long intervals of silence when, together by the
window in the library where he was fussing over his "Life History," she
never spoke, never even moved from her characteristic attitude--seated
deep in a leather chair, arms resting on the padded chai