in his
and looking down at him with a face that all her efforts could not
induce to smile.

"Oh I'll be all right soon. How good of you to come. You've not been
hungry since?"

"No, no," said Priscilla, stroking his hands with her free hand and
giving them soothing pats as one would to a sick child.

"Really not? I've thought of that ever since. I've never got your face
that night out of my head. What had happened? While I was away--what
had happened?"

"Nothing--nothing had happened," said Priscilla hastily. "I was tired.
I had a mood. I get them, you know. I get angry easily. Then I like
to be alone till I'm sorry."

"But what had made you angry? Had I--?"

"No, never. You have never been anything but good and kind. You've
been our protecting spirit since we came here."

Tussie laughed shrilly, and immediately was seized by a coughing fit.
Lady Shuttleworth stood at the foot of the bed watching him with a
face from which happiness seemed to have fled for ever. Priscilla grew
more and more wretched, caught, obliged to stand there, distractedly
stroking his hands in her utter inability to think of anything else to
do.

"A nice protecting spirit," gasped Tussie derisively, when he could
speak. "Look at me here, tied down to this bed for heaven knows how
long, and not able to do a thing for you."

"But there's nothing now to do. We're quite comfortable. We are
really. Do, do believe it."

"Are you only comfortable, or are you happy as well?"

"Oh, we're _very_ happy," said Priscilla with all the emphasis she
could get into her voice; and again she tried, quite unsuccessfully,
to wrench her mouth into a smile.

"Then, if you're happy, why do you look so miserable?"

He was gazing up into her face with eyes whose piercing brightness
would have frightened the nurse. There was no shyness now about
Tussie. There never is about persons whose temperature is 102.

"Miserable?" repeated Priscilla. She tried to smile; looked helplessly
at Lady Shuttleworth; looked down again at Tussie; and stammering
"Because you are so ill and it's all my fault," to her horror, to her
boundless indignation at herself, two tears, big and not to be hidden,
rolled down her face and dropped on to Tussie's and her clasped hands.

Tussie struggled to sit up straight. "Look, mother, look--" he cried,
gasping, "my beautiful one--my dear and lovely one--my darling--she's
crying--I've made her cry--now never tell me I'm not a brute
agai