look of expectancy. She came forwards, and threw herself passionately into my arms, murmuring words of delight and welcome, like a child. "I knew you would come," she said. "I am frightened--all sorts of dreadful things have happened. I have found out where I am--and I seem to have lost all my friends. Charmides is gone, and Lucius is cruel to me--he tells me that I have lost my spirits and my good looks, and am tiresome company." I looked at her--she was paler and frailer-looking than when I left her; and she was habited very differently, in simpler and graver dress. But she was to my eyes infinitely more beautiful and dearer, and I told her so. She smiled at that, but half tearfully; and we seated ourselves on a bench hard by, looking over the garden, which was strangely and luxuriantly beautiful. "You must take me away with you at once," she said. "I cannot live here without you. I thought at first, when you went, that it was rather a relief not to have your grave face at my shoulder,"--here she took my face in her hands--"always reminding me of something I did not want, and ought to have wanted--but oh, how I began to miss you! and then I got so tired of this silly, lazy place, and all the music and jokes and compliments. But I am a worthless creature, and not good for anything. I cannot work, and I hate being idle. Take me anywhere, _make_ me do something, beat me if you like, only force me to be different from what I am." "Very well," I said. "I will give you a good beating presently, of course, but just let me consider what will hurt you most, silly child!" "That is it," she said. "I want to be hurt and bruised, and shaken as my nurse used to shake me, when I was a naughty child. Oh dear, oh dear, how wretched I am!" and poor Cynthia laid her head on my shoulder and burst into tears. "Come, come," I said, "you must not do that--I want my wits about me; but if you cry, you will simply make a fool of me--and this is no time for love-making." "Then you do really _care_", said Cynthia in a quieter tone. "That is all I want to know! I want to be with you, and see you every hour and every minute. I can't help saying it, though it is really very undignified for me to be making love to you. I did many silly things on earth, but never anything quite so feeble as that!" I felt myself fairly bewildered by the situation. My psychology did not seem to help me; and here at least was something to love and rescue. I will say frankly that, in my stupidity and superiority, I did not really think of loving Cynthia in the way in which she needed to be loved. She was to me, with all my grave concerns and problems, as a charming and intelligent child, with whom I could not even speak of half the thoughts which absorbed me. So I just held her in my arms, and comforted her as best I could; but what to do and where to bestow her I could not tell. I saw that her time to leave the place of desire had come, but what she could turn to I could not conceive.