Rose Wilding sat down easily, smiling broadly. She seemed at ease once Augusta had left the room. "It wouldn't do for you to be in this place long, Mr. Jimmie," she said, "if it acts that way on you." She was so like herself in her answer, so sane, so unruffled and ready, that Wardwell forgot the place where they were, and why they were there, and began to argue earnestly. "Sounds funny, doesn't it? But then, it needn't. I don't have to play the fool always. And if Augusta cared enough for me--" Rose Wilding sat up with a sharp movement. Wardwell could see the jealous, protecting mother-light in her eyes, as she questioned sternly: "Just what has been going on?" "Nothing," said Jimmie honestly. "I have not spoken a word to Augusta." "Then it is just one other bit of your nonsense," she said with an air that dropped the matter altogether. And Wardwell let it stand so. For a moment he had thought that he ought to try to make her understand. But he suddenly felt the hopelessness of it. It would not do any good. If she could understand, she would never give her consent. And it might do her great harm to let her be bothered and excited at this time. He and Augusta would have to face the problem out for themselves. A sudden wave of overpowering tenderness came breaking over him, so that he never knew what he said at leaving Rose Wilding. He found Augusta out in a long, black corridor, looking from a window down across the dreary face of the water. She was so pathetically little, so tender, so sensitive, so delicately fashioned for pain! With a queer mingling of emotions, he found himself praying that she might be spared; and at the same time almost cursing himself because he was not a better man, more worthy of her. On the boat they were practically alone. And as they stood out near the open prow, watching the cold drift of the spray as it broke over the bow, they saw the busy slits of streets sliding by, saw men and women how they hurried about their own business, saw that no one had time for thought of anything but that which concerned himself in the way of living. And I think it came to both these two, at the same moment, how really alone they were out of all the world. Their doings or their thoughts were of no account to anyone. And in the weeks a common thought, an anxiety shared, had drawn them together, had almost made them forget that there was a world around them. Suddenly Augusta shivered and cowered against Wardwell's arm. "I can't," she moaned brokenly. "I can never stand it! I shall go mad so they'll have to put me in there too! And I know that if they'd only let me have Mamma she'd get all better and know me. If she was only at home, she'd remember everything!" Wardwell put his arm gently around her shoulder. "I didn't mean to say it this way, dear," he said softly. "But I think you know what I feel. I probably wouldn't be much good, but I'd _serve_."