just inside the door, struck by the pallor, the haggardness
of his sister's face.

"Oh, I say, Anne!" he exclaimed. "You're not taking it so hard as all
this, I hope. My Lord, girlie, you look--you look--why, you can't possibly
feel like this about him. What the deuce are--"

"Close the door, George," she commanded. Her voice sounded hollow,
lifeless to him. She was sitting bolt upright on the huge, comfortable
couch in front of the grate fire. He had dreaded seeing her in black. She
had worn it the day before. He remembered that she had worn more of it
than seemed necessary to him. It had made her appear clumsy and over-fed.
He was immensely relieved to find that she now wore a rose-coloured
pignoir, and that it was wrapped very closely about her slim, long figure,
as if she were afflicted by the cold and was futilely trying to protect
her shivering flesh. He shuffled across the room and sat down beside her.
"I'm glad you came. It is--oh, it is horribly lonely here in this dreadful
house. You--"

"Hasn't mother been down to see you?" he demanded. "She ought to be here.
You need her. Confound it, Anne, what sort of a woman is--"

"Hush! She telephoned. I said that I preferred to be alone. But I'm glad
you came, George." She laid her hand on his. "You are able to feel sorry
for me. Mother isn't."

"You're looking awfully seedy, Anne. I still say she ought to be here to
look after you. It's her place."

"I'm all right. Of course, I look like the dickens, but who wouldn't? It
has been terrible. Weeks and weeks of it. You'll never know what--" She
shuddered so violently that he threw his arm about her and drew her close.

"Well, it's all over now, girlie. Brace up. Sunshine from now on. It was a
bad day's work when you let yourself in for it, but that's all over now."

"Yes, it's all over," she said slowly. "Everything's all over." Her wide,
sombre eyes fixed their gaze upon the rippling blue flames in the grate.

"Well, smile a little. It's time some one of us Tresslyns had a chance to
grin a little without bearing it."

She raised her eyes and slowly inspected this big brother of hers.
Seemingly she had not taken him in as a whole up to that moment of
consideration. A slight frown appeared on her brow.

"I've been hearing rather bad things about you, George," she said, after a
moment. "Now that I look at you, you do look pretty shaky,--and pretty well
threshed out. Is it true? Have you been as bad as they say?