But now, if I must stay shut in my body, she must come. She should never leave me. I would tell her every day just how hard life was. And she would be sorry for me; she would understand. I reached out with all the life left in me to draw her out of Make-Believe, now shut against me, and bring her to share my prison, and to hear my complaints. * * * * * I turned my head upon the pillow and lifted my heavy lids. She was coming toward the bed. I raised my arms feebly, and her own were round me. My head fell on her breast, and I lay there, drawing long, sobbing breaths, while she stroked my hair with firm and gentle fingers. There was no need for speech: her touch was always plainer than other people’s words. But presently I was aware of a difference in her touch, a something new and strange. I whispered weakly, without opening my eyes. “What is it dear? What troubles you? Why don’t you speak to me?” Silence. Only that tender, pitying touch. “I knew you’d be sorry for me,” I whispered on; “and oh, I want you to be! I wouldn’t have called you if it were real, you know—I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. But nothing can hurt you now. Isn’t Love so plain to you, and the end of things, and the reasons why they must be—isn’t all that so shining clear to you that even my being like this can’t hurt? Tell me about it. I want to know it is clear to somebody—I’m so far gone in the dark.” Still no answer. “Then be sorry for me,” I went on, dashing my desperate pleading against that strange, disquieting silence. “I’ve borne so much. I must tell somebody, and it isn’t fair to talk about it to them here at home. I’ve never talked to anybody before, even to you. I’ve never even cried, never once, except all by myself in the dark. And I’m such a coward about everything, and specially about pain; I’ve been so afraid of it all my life. And it never stops. It’s been years, Ella, years and years. And oh, I can’t bear it any more! You don’t know what it’s like just to be still and suffer when you can’t _do_ anything. It wasn’t so bad when I could keep going; I could fight. But now I can’t fight any more. I want to die. I think God ought to let me die.—I’ve tried; I’ve tried my best so long. And I can’t try any more.” The words were scarcely breathed, and I stopped in exhaustion, the slow tears dropping on her breast. Still she did not speak. Deeper and deeper sank her silence, pressed in by that strange, tender touch. Suddenly I shivered, and my eyes flew wide. Her own were full of love and sorrow—a sorrow that looked past all my complaints to something deeper and more vital. I shrank away from her. “I can’t,” I said. “I can’t any more; I can’t.” Behind the sorrow in her eyes a light was kindled; but it only frightened me the more. “I have tried,” I protested. “I’ve done nothing else the most of my life. Is there no pity, even in you?”