The light from the hall streamed in upon her pale, tear-wet cheeks and quivering red mouth, and touched him with keenest pain, for before he opened the door he had caught the sound of her bursting sobs. Involuntarily he caught her hand and drew her up close to him, looking at her in deep distress. “In tears, my--child!” he exclaimed huskily. “Are you ill, or--only sad?” She drew back quickly from him, ashamed of the tears she had forgotten in the joy of his coming. “It’s nothing, nothing!” she answered. “You--you--think me a great baby, sitting up here in the dark crying over a little disappointment,” and she brushed away the tears with a furtive hand. But something in his deep glance made her feel that he had a silent sympathy for her grief. “Poor little one! Yes, I know how you feel,” he said warmly. “But I have come to take you to the party. As soon as I joined them and found you were not there, I came away to bring you.” “Oh, how good you are!” she cried gratefully, then thrilled with a guilty pang. _She_ to call Francis Murray good! Was she turning traitor to that dear, loved mother who had sobbed beneath the blossoming lime-trees: “Oh, my love, my love, how cruel Fate has been to us!” He could not tell what she was thinking; he only heard her gracious words, and thrilled with a painful delight. “I am fully repaid for coming now; so get ready, and I will be waiting for you down-stairs,” he said kindly, moving a little away and fighting down an impulse almost stronger than his will to catch the slender form in his arms and press the lovely, grieved face against his heart. “Oh, I must not go. Your mother----” she began falteringly. “Yes, I know; Alexie told me that my mother had taken a notion it was not prudent for you to go out. But take some wraps with you, and you’ll be all right. I will be fixing it up with my mother while you are dressing.” He smiled at her--a smile so deep, so kind, it seemed to draw the heart from her breast. Then he turned away, and Italy closed the door and turned up the light--her brain whirling. “What is this? What has come to me?” she whispered to herself, in a sort of rapturous terror. She sank on her knees and hid her burning face against the bed, whispering painfully: “I--I--am getting to like him very much. I was so glad when he came, so glad that he thought of me, wished for me! And how strange that he should be kind to me, knowing what he does, suspecting what he does. He has a noble nature, to be so kind to me when he must despise me in his heart! But no, it was not hatred that looked out of his beautiful eyes. Does he ever look at Alys like that, I wonder? Ah, Heaven, what am I dreaming? I must not, must not go mad! For this is _madness_! Heaven help me, help me!”