The tortured voice sent a lump into Anne's throat. She knelt beside the chair and laid a compassionate arm about the shaking shoulders. "Come," said she. "You are ill and over-wrought. We will go upstairs and Regina and I will help you to bed. There's a good boy!" The protective gesture, the kind words were too much. Utterly beside himself, he turned and laid his head upon the refuge of her breast. "You are good, good," he whispered. "You are not disappointed in me because I'm a failure. You are not greedy like the others, who only want what they can get out of me. Yes, I will trust you and I will stay." As he raised his head, she felt her neck was moistened with his tears. CHAPTER II ESCAPADE After a sleepless night, Anne dozed late. So when Regina brought in her coffee about nine o'clock as usual, she awakened gropingly to fog. Fog, which filtered in at the windows in layers of pale moonlight, and wreathed about the house an ectoplasmic shroud until for a long moment Anne had the illusion of floating through clouds in a dreamship. Then Regina spoke. "Dio mio, it's as chill as the finger of death in here!" She closed the windows violently. "When will you learn to take care of yourself, carina?" Anne smiled. She was accustomed to these wild admonitions. She sat up in bed and slipped into the green silk kimono which Regina was holding out to her. The contrast between her own slim white arms and the woman's knotted brown hands pleased her impersonally. She allowed her fingers to rest upon Regina's sleeve. Relaxed and peaceful, the enshrouding fog rose like a protecting wall between her and an irksome world. She sighed luxuriantly at the thought of having left it all behind her. Then the memory of last night swooped down upon her with the clamorous beat of wings and sleep departed. She clasped Regina's wrist with tense fingers. "Regina, how is he? Where is he this morning?" she exclaimed wide awake and anxious. "I had forgotten all about him, poor boy!" The woman smiled benevolently. She placed the tray upon a table beside the bed. "He sleeps, cara, he sleeps. I but this moment popped my head in at the door and he was lying there as still and quiet as a child, poverino. So don't worry your little head about him, but eat your breakfast before it freezes to a jelly." But Anne did not hesitate. With a lithe movement she was out of bed. Twisting the brazen rope of hair about her small head, she fastened it with a massive gold hairpin. Then, a mediæval princess, in trailing green draperies, she swept from the room.