"So I'm going to undress you," Katie unfolded her plan, encouraged by the tear, "and then let's just see what hot water can do about it. And maybe a little rub. I used to rub my mother's spine. She said life always seemed worth living after I had done that." She patted the hand she held ever so lightly as she said: "How happy I would be if I could make you feel that way about it, too. Then I've a dear room to take you into, all soft grays and greens, and oh, such a good bed! Why you know you're tired! That's what's the matter with you, and you're just too tired to know what's the matter." The girl nodded, tears upon her cheeks, looking like a child that has had a cruel time and needs to be comforted. Katie's voice was lower, different, as she went on: "Then after I've brushed your hair and done all those 'comfy' things I'm going to put you in a certain, a very special gown I have. It was made by the nuns in a convent in Southern France. As they worked upon it they sat in a garden on a hillside. They thought serene thoughts, those nuns. You see I know them, lived with them. I don't know, one has odd fancies sometimes, and it always seemed to me that something of the peace of things there was absorbed in that wonderful bit of linen. It seems far away from things that hurt and harm. Almost as if it might draw back things that had gone. I was going to keep it--" Katie's eyes deepened, there was a little catch in her voice. "Well, I was just keeping it. But because you are so tired--oh just because you need it so.--I want you to let me give it to you." And with a tender strength holding the sobbing girl Katie unfastened her collar and began taking off her dress. CHAPTER III "Kate," demanded Captain Jones, "what's that noise?" "How should I know?" airily queried Kate. "I heard a noise in the room above. This chimney carries every sound." "Nonsense," jeered his sister. "Wayne, you've lived alone so long that you're getting spooky." He turned to the other man. "Prescott, didn't you hear something?" "Believe I did. It sounded like a cough." "Well, what of it?" railed Kate. "Isn't poor Nora permitted to cough, if she is disposed to cough? She's in there doing the room for me. I'm going to try sleeping in there--isn't insomnia a fearful thing? But the fussiness of men!"