We had just been served with salad, when Fong came in, brushed Wing aside, and bent over Bill, saying something very low. A little gleam of some inner excitement came into the steel-blue eyes. He flung down his napkin. "Tell Juan to wait," he said, and rose. "I beg your pardon," he said formally to me, "but I am afraid that you must eat your dinner alone. Someone has come up from the village to see me." "Juan?" I asked. "Is Annunciata ill again?" "No, no," he was clearly impatient and started from the room. "Shall I have Norah save some dinner for you?" I asked, mechanically. "Don't bother," he said, hesitated, and then, suddenly crossing the room in four strides, he was beside me. I felt his hand on my hair and stiffened under the unaccustomed touch. The hand dropped to his side. "Don't think so badly of me, Mavis," he said, "even if you have been a 'charity patient'--do you know the Bible meaning of Charity?" Before I could speak, he was gone. He had not changed for dinner, a real innovation, and was in riding things. I heard the ring of the little spurs he wore on the tiles, and the sound of a closing door. "The Bible meaning of Charity?" But that was--that was--Love. What did he mean--a love-patient? I sat, my hands under my chin, while Wing came and went with the untasted food. A love-patient? Something terribly sweet and keen pierced my heart. It couldn't be. Love wasn't like that--cruel and wounding and hurting. Love "suffereth long and is kind." That was in the Bible too. "Love suffereth long and is kind--seeketh not its own--beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth." The big tears ran down my cheeks. "_Love never faileth._" If it was true then--"Oh, God, let it be true!" I prayed, mutely. If it were true then, how blind I had been! Sacrifice--patience--hope--. Would he have done so much for someone he despised--even for revenge? I began to remember-- There were voices outside--loud, excited, almost hysterical--Was Bill there? I waited for him in my chair. I had not moved. He would find me as he had left me. Perhaps he had come back to tell me what he had meant. Charity--Love. The door flew open and Sarah burst in. She was crying. I saw that at once, and wanted to say to her, "So you have heard? It isn't true, Sarah, it wasn't charity, after all, it was love--" But she came straight to me and caught desperately at my hands, "Miss Mavis,--the cane--it's been set afire--Silas is down there, and Dr. Denton--" Then I awoke. "Dr. Denton!" I had her by the shoulders, I was shaking her--"Not Dr. Denton!" "Yes, Miss Mavis. Juan crept up here to warn him. But those devils fired the cane while he was in this very house. Fields of it in flame, and Silas there--" She was in a chair now, her apron twisted between her work-worn fingers, the sobs taking her by the throat.