terribly. You ought to have some wonderful woman who would understand
your greatness, would see all that you are."

"Now," he sighed, "now I _am_ great--because you think I am; that's
water to me--after a lifetime of thirst."

"Hugh, _am_ I good enough for you?" She was sobbing and laughing at the
same time.

It was too much for him. He drew himself gently away. He whispered: "I
can't bear being loved--being happy. I'll go out by myself for a bit
alone. Sylvie, Sylvie! Every instant I--I worship _you_!" He threw
himself down before her and pressed his face against her knees. She
caressed the thick, grizzled hair. He stood up and then stumbled away
from her, more blind than she, out of the house into the gathering
night.

CHAPTER VI

In the big, rudely carved chair Sylvie leaned back her head and pressed
her hands to her unseeing eyes. She was not sorry that Hugh had left
her, for she was oppressed and unnerved by her own emotions. Until he
had kissed her hair, she had not known that she loved him--or rather
loved an invisible presence that had enveloped her in an atmosphere of
sympathy, of protection, that had painted itself, so to speak, in heroic
colors and proportions against her darkness, that had revealed both
strength and tenderness in touch and movement, and warm, deep voice.

For until now Sylvie's life had been entirely lacking in protection and
tenderness; she had never known sympathy--her natural romanticism had
been starved. The lacks in her life Hugh had supplied the more lavishly
because he was aided, in her blindness, by the unrestricted powers of
her fancy. But now in all the fervor of this, Sylvie felt, also for
the first time, the full bitterness of her blindness. If she could see
him--if only once! If she could see him!

And there came to Sylvie unreasonably, disconnectedly, a keen memory of
Pete's embrace when he had caught her up from falling on the hearth.
A boy of fourteen? Strange that he should be so strong, that his heart
should beat so loud, that his arms should draw themselves so closely, so
powerfully about her. What were they really like, these people who
moved unseen around her and who exerted such great power over her sudden
helplessness?

She got up and began to walk to and fro restlessly, gropingly across the
room. She wished now that Hugh would come back. He had been with her so
constantly that she had grown utterly dependent upon him. The dense red
fog that lay so th