Stanor Vaughan felt within him the stirrings of tenderness and pity with which a strong man regards weakness in any form. Pixie was by nature such a jaunty little thing that it seemed doubly pathetic to see her so reduced. A fellow wanted to take her up in his arms, and comfort her, and make her smile again. A flush rose in Stanor's cheeks as he recalled an incident of the night of the accident. After the hurried return to the house, the three guests had sat alone, waiting in miserable suspense for the doctor's verdict, but Pixie had disappeared. No one knew where she had gone. Honor searched for her in vain, and at last in an access of anxiety Stanor himself took up the quest. He found her at last, perched on the wide window-seat of an upper window, but all his persuasions could not move her from her post. "Let me stay here!" she persisted. "It comforts me. I can see--I can see the _lights_!" "You mean the motor lamps as they come up the drive?" "No," she said simply, "I mean the stars." Stanor was as unimaginative as most men of his age, and his first impression was that the poor little thing was off her head. He crept downstairs and rang for a basin of the good warm soup with which he and his companions had been provided an hour before. When it was brought he carried the tray carefully up three long flights of stairs, and besought of Pixie to drink it forthwith. She shook her head, and all his persuasions could not rouse her to the exertion; but being an obstinate young man, he but set his lips and determined to succeed. This time, however, he resorted to force instead of persuasion, for, having placed the tray on a corner of the sill, he filled the spoon with soup and held it determinedly to the girl's lips. Now, if she moved or made a fuss, the soup would assuredly be spilled, and no living girl would voluntarily pour soup over her frock! But Pixie made no fuss. Meekly, obediently as a little bird, she opened her lips, and swallowed, and swallowed again and again, until the bowl was emptied of its contents. There was something so trustful and unconscious about the action that the young man felt the smart of tears in his eyes--the first tears he had known for many a long year. When the soup had been finished he went away again, and came back with a warm shawl which he had procured from a maid. In wrapping it round the quiescent figure his hands had accidentally come in contact with hers, and finding them cold as ice, it seemed the natural thing to chafe them gently between his own. Quite natural also Pixie appeared to find the action, for the cold little fingers had tightened affectionately round his own. It was left to him to flush and feel embarrassed; Pixie remained placidly unmoved.