"Go to bed, my boy," I said, gently urging him toward the door. "Get some rest and still your poor nerves. To-morrow we shall discuss and settle this matter in your best interests. Remember you are surrounded by your friends." With a faint gleam of gratitude in his eyes, he shuffled out unsteadily and I pressed his hand as we parted at the door. I heard him moving about in his room. Then I realized that I must find Alicia. *CHAPTER XXVI* Treading speedily with a strange lightness of step, I mounted the stairs first to see whether Alicia might have returned to her room, as was natural, and found her door ajar and the apartment empty. My brain still wheeling, I seemed to float dawn the stairway and into the dining room, but no one was there. Somewhat uneasily I passed through the narrow box-like pantry into the kitchen and there the door that gave on the garden stood open wide. In the shadow, under the starlit sky, under the mystical blue of overhanging boughs, stood Alicia alone, gazing into the velvety night, straight as a silvery Diana, mysterious, tragic. At the sight of her the mad tumult of the evening seemed to ooze away from me in waves. By an effort of will I forced my heart to beat more soberly, as I approached her softly. "Alicia!" I whispered behind her so as not to startle her. Slowly she turned toward me. Her face was but dimly discernible but her eyes shone in the night with the brightness of the stars. The one thought of my heart was to bring Alicia back to the life of the past, to wipe out as swiftly as possible the ravages of the emotional storm, to bring her back to the tranquil blissful life that her happy presence made for me. A sad Alicia was unthinkable. "You must come in, my child!" I touched her gently. "I have tried so hard, Uncle Ranny," she turned her face and laid a hand timidly upon my arm, "I have tried so hard to keep all this pain from you—so that you could go on being your happy, lovely self." My own thoughts concerning her! She was giving them back to me—with the poignant wistful gloom, the intense pathos of the young that is so touching, in the young you love so lacerating. Did I ever say that there are no women to-day who wear the hair shirt, like the radiant girl wife of Jacopone da Todi? Blind fool that I have been! "But my darling girl," I seized both her cold little hands, "don’t worry about me. I am old and tough—seasoned to the fortunes of life—and to the misfortunes, too. It is sad, very sad, but it is nothing. It’s you I am thinking of. Things happen, my dear. Life is like that. There is a lot of happiness and serenity in it. But you must not let this bite into your soul—it will pass, Alicia—it has passed already. I want you to return to your happy blissful self—the self that has made me—all of us—so happy—so very happy."