Felicia in the next room was humming an air. She had returned from her walk with Raine and was taking off her things. If she had been called upon suddenly to name the air, it would have slipped like a waking dream from her memory. The mingled altruistic and personal feelings of the past two hours had lifted her into an exalted mood, which was not altogether joyous. She was passing through one of those rare moments, when a young impressionable girl lives spiritually, without definite consciousness of personal needs, in a certain music of the soul. A sexual manifestation transcendentalized, if one pushes inquiry to the root of things. The magic of her sex had drawn the pain from a strong man's eyes and had touched his inner self. Suddenly a sound struck upon her ear and the song died upon her lips. She listened, puzzled. It came again, a moan and a choking sob. Already somewhat overwrought, she held her breath, instinctively seeking some clue of association. She grasped it with a rush of emotion. Once she had heard that cry before, from a woman's depths, on the evening of poor little Miss Bunter's tragedy. It was Katherine, on the other side of the wooden partition, crying her heart out. Fibres within the girl were strangely stirred, filling her with a great, yearning pity. At some moments of their lives women can touch the stars. Moved by an uncontrollable impulse she went out, knocked at Katherine's door and entered. Katherine rose, looked at her half-bewildered; then the magnetism of the sympathy in Felicia's eyes and impulsively outstretched arms attracted her involuntarily. She made a step forward, and, with a little cry, half-sob, half-welcome, gave herself up to Felicia's clasp. “I heard you. I had to come,” said Felicia. Katherine did not reply. For a long time they sat together without speaking, the elder woman's misery turned to sadness by the sweet and sudden tenderness. She cried softly in the girl's arms. “It was good of you to come,” she said at last. “I had broken down-- utterly broken down.” “I felt it,” answered Felicia gently. She smoothed Katherine's ruffled fair hair with a light touch and kissed her forehead. “It will come right in time, dear.” But Katherine shook her head. “Some things are final, irrevocable. The sun goes out of one's heart for ever and ever.” “Could I do nothing for you? Practically I mean. You see, I know--a word--it might be in my power--” She hesitated, touching upon delicate ground. Katherine lifted a tear-stained face, and looked at her curiously. “You love him--and yet you would help me?” “Because he loves you, dear,” said Felicia. “And because it has come upon me that I have been doing you a great wrong--in thinking badly of you.” “What has made you think better of me?” “Intuition, I suppose--and when I seemed to realize what his love for you meant. He could only love what was worthy of him.” “That is why he can love me no more,” said Katherine in a low voice.