A door was opening somewhere, an inch at a time. Catherine strained forward, too heavy with pain to rise. She felt Charles's uneasy start, felt the hours of anxiety behind the sharp gripping of his hand under hers. Feet shuffled toward them. Her mother appeared at the door, her blue eyes blinking under the frill of her lace cap, a perceptible quaver in the old hand which held together the folds of her gray bathrobe. "Thank Heaven you've come, Catherine!" She scuffed across the linoleum and pecked softly at Catherine's cheek. "Poor little Spencer--he asked for you." "Oh!" Catherine was on her feet, but Charles held her fingers restrainingly. "Last night, mother means. The nurse said she'd call me the instant he woke. He's really sleeping now. Not unconscious." Catherine stood between them for a moment of silence. "It stands to reason he might not be hurt bad, and yet want his mother." Who said that? Some one had said it to her. "We looked for you yesterday," said Mrs. Spencer. "Blizzards. I couldn't get a train." Catherine felt a bond between them, excluding her, accusing her. Charles stared at her, his eyes sunken, the lines about his mouth deepened; her mother--a thin, wrinkled film seemed drawn over her face, dimming her color. "I came the instant I could. I sat up on a local." She clasped her hands against her breast, against the heavy, pounding ache. "You must be tired to pieces, poor child." Her mother patted her arm. "Don't feel so bad, Cathy. It might have happened if you'd been right here. And it's turning out so much better than----" "But I wasn't here," said Catherine, quietly. And then, "What about Walter?" She could see that sled sweeping around the corner. "Was he hurt?" "Shaken up and bruised. Spencer was steering." A rustle at the door, a strange face staring at her, crisp and cold above white linen. "Yes?" Charles stepped forward intently. "The little boy is awake." "This is Mrs. Hammond, Miss Pert. She may go in?" She was a culprit, a stranger, trembling, unable to move. "You'd better take off your hat and coat, Mrs. Hammond. And don't excite him. He's drowsy." The dim, shaded light; a little still mound under the counterpane; under the smooth white turban of bandages, Spencer's gray eyes, moving softly with her flight from the door to his bed. On her knees beside him, her fingers closing about his hand. Quiet, not to excite him. How limp and small his hand felt! "Hello, Moth-er!" He sighed, and his eyelids shut down again. VI