r. It was no more
homelike to me than any other spot in this city of a strange
generation, nor were its inmates less utterly and necessarily strangers
than all the other men and women now on the earth. Had the door of the
house been locked, I should have been reminded by its resistance that I
had no object in entering, and turned away, but it yielded to my hand,
and advancing with uncertain steps through the hall, I entered one of
the apartments opening from it. Throwing myself into a chair, I covered
my burning eyeballs with my hands to shut out the horror of
strangeness. My mental confusion was so intense as to produce actual
nausea. The anguish of those moments, during which my brain seemed
melting, or the abjectness of my sense of helplessness, how can I
describe? In my despair I groaned aloud. I began to feel that unless
some help should come I was about to lose my mind. And just then it did
come. I heard the rustle of drapery, and looked up. Edith Leete was
standing before me. Her beautiful face was full of the most poignant
sympathy.

"Oh, what is the matter, Mr. West?" she said. "I was here when you came
in. I saw how dreadfully distressed you looked, and when I heard you
groan, I could not keep silent. What has happened to you? Where have
you been? Can't I do something for you?"

Perhaps she involuntarily held out her hands in a gesture of compassion
as she spoke. At any rate I had caught them in my own and was clinging
to them with an impulse as instinctive as that which prompts the
drowning man to seize upon and cling to the rope which is thrown him as
he sinks for the last time. As I looked up into her compassionate face
and her eyes moist with pity, my brain ceased to whirl. The tender
human sympathy which thrilled in the soft pressure of her fingers had
brought me the support I needed. Its effect to calm and soothe was like
that of some wonder-working elixir.

"God bless you," I said, after a few moments. "He must have sent you to
me just now. I think I was in danger of going crazy if you had not
come." At this the tears came into her eyes.

"Oh, Mr. West!" she cried. "How heartless you must have thought us! How
could we leave you to yourself so long! But it is over now, is it not?
You are better, surely."

"Yes," I said, "thanks to you. If you will not go away quite yet, I
shall be myself soon."

"Indeed I will not go away," she said, with a little quiver of her
face, more expressive of her sympat