Then she cried so hard that her overwrought, half-starved little body collapsed, and she crept into her bed and was sick all night and all the next day, so that there was no possible thought or chance of packing or traveling. But towards the second evening she struggled up to get herself a taste of food and wine from her cupboard, and, wrapping herself in her pink kimono, huddled over the fire to try and find a little blaze and cheer. Just as the flames commenced to flush her cheeks the lock clicked. She started up in alarm. The door opened abruptly, and the Man strode in with a very determined, husbandly look on his haggard face. For the fraction of a second he stood and looked at her pitifully frightened and disheveled little figure. "Forgive me," he cried, "but I _had_ to come like this." Then he took one mighty stride and caught her up in his arms and carried her back to her open bed and tucked her in like a child while she clung to his neck laughing and sobbing and crying as though her brain was turned. He smoothed her hair, he kissed her eyes, he rubbed his rough cheek confidently against her soft one, and finally, when her convulsive tremors quieted a little, he reached down into his great overcoat pocket and took out poor, battered, mutilated Hickory Dock. "I found him down in the Janitor's office just now," he explained, and his mouth twitched just the merest trifle at the corners. "Don't smile," said the Girl, sitting up suddenly very straight and stiff. "Don't smile till you know the whole truth. _I_ broke Hickory Dock. I threw him _purposely_ four stories down into the brick alley!" The Man began to examine Hickory Dock very carefully. "I should judge that it was a _brick_ alley," he remarked with an odd twist of his lips, as he tossed the shattered little clock over to the burlap-covered armchair. Then he took the Girl very quietly and tenderly in his arms again, and gazed down into her eyes with a look that was new to him. "Rosalie," he whispered, "I will mend Hickory Dock for you if it takes a thousand years,"--his voice choked,--"but I wish to God I could mend my broken promise as easily!" And Rosalie smiled through her tears and said,-- "Sweetheart-Man, you do love me?" "With all my heart and soul and body and breath, and past and present and future I _love you_!" said the Man. Then Rosalie kissed a little path to his ear, and whispered, oh, so softly,-- "Sweetheart-Man, I love _you_ just that same way." And Hickory Dock, the Angel, never ticked the passing of a single second, but lay on his back looking straight up to Heaven with his two little battered hands clasped eternally at Love's _high noon_. THE VERY TIRED GIRL