"Would you mind--holding my wrists again?" he asked. "I feel quieter, somehow, when you do--not so--lost." There was a pathetic boyishness in his tone that the sad, clear lines of his face would never prepare you for. Phyllis took his wrists in her warm, strong hands obediently. "Are you in pain, Allan?" she asked. "Do you mind if I call you Allan? It's the easiest way." He smiled at her a little, faintly. It occurred to her that perhaps the novelty of her was taking his mind a little from his own feelings. "No--no pain. I haven't had any for a very long time now. Only this dreadful blackness dragging at my mind, a blackness the light hurts." "_Why!_" said Phyllis to herself, being on known ground here--"why, it's nervous depression! I believe cheering-up _would_ help. I know," she said aloud; "I've had it." "You?" he said. "But you seem so--happy!" "I suppose I am," said Phyllis shyly. She felt a little afraid of "poor Allan" still, now that there was nothing to do for him, and they were talking together. And he had not answered her question, either; doubtless he wanted her to say "Mr. Allan" or even "Mr. Harrington!" He replied to her thought in the uncanny way invalids sometimes do. "You said something about what we were to call each other," he murmured. "It would be foolish, of course, not to use first names. Yours is Alice, isn't it?" Phyllis laughed. "Oh, worse than that!" she said. "I was named out of a poetrybook, I believe--Phyllis Narcissa. But I always conceal the Narcissa." "Phyllis. Thank you," he said wearily. ... "_Phyllis, don't let go! Talk_ to me!" His eyes were those of a man in torment. "What shall I talk about?" she asked soothingly, keeping the two cold, clutching hands in her warm grasp. "Shall I tell you a story? I know a great many stories by heart, and I will say them for you if you like. It was part of my work." "Yes," he said. "Anything." Phyllis arranged herself more comfortably on the bed, for it looked as if she had some time to stay, and began the story she knew best, because her children liked it best, Kipling's "How the Elephant Got His Trunk." "A long, long time ago, O Best Beloved...." Allan listened, and, she thought, at times paid attention to the words. He almost smiled once or twice, she was nearly sure. She went straight on to another story when the first was done. Never had she worked so hard to keep the interest of any restless circle of children as she worked now, sitting up in the pink light in her crepe wrappings, with her school-girl braids hanging down over her bosom, and Allan Harrington's agonized golden-brown eyes fixed on her pitying ones. "You must be tired," he said more connectedly and quietly when she had ended the second story. "Can't you sit up here by me, propped on the pillows? And you need a quilt or something, too."