He sat beside her on the sofa's edge--she was so thin there was plenty of room--and taking her hand held it while he tried to hide the concern that seized him. After the first sentence of greeting she fell back on the crumpled pillow, and lay still, the little flicker of animation dying out. "Well, well, Panchita," he said, patting her hand, a kindly awkward figure hunched up in his big overcoat; "this is something new for you." She made an agreeing movement with her head, her glance resting where it fell, too languid to move. "I seem to be all in," she murmured. "Just played out?" "Looks that way." "I didn't know till this morning--Mrs. Wesson told me. How did it happen?" "I don't know, I got all weak. It was last night." "At the theater?" "No, here, in my room. I kept feeling worse and worse, but I thought I could pull through. And then I knew I couldn't and I got down to the phone some way and told them. And then I came back here and--I don't know--I sort of broke to pieces." As she completed the sentence tears suddenly welled into her eyes and began to run, unchecked, in shining drops down her cheeks. She drew her hand from Crowder's and turning on her side placed it and its fellow over her face and wept, a river of tears that came softly without sobs. Crowder was overwhelmed. He had never thought his friend could be so broken, never had imagined her weak as other women, bereft of her gallant pride. "Oh, Pancha," he said, unutterably distressed, "you poor girl! I'm so sorry, I'm so awfully sorry." He crooned over her in his rough man's tenderness, stroking her hair. "You've worked yourself to the bone. You ought to have given in sooner, you've kept it up too long." Her voice came smothered through the shielding hands: "It's not that, Charlie, it's not that." This surprised him exceedingly. That any other cause than overwork could so reduce her had never occurred to him. Had she some ailment--some hidden suffering--preying on her? He thought of the Indian's stoicism and was filled with apprehension. "Well, then, what is it?" he asked. "Are you ill?" She moved her head in silent negation. "But if it isn't work, it must be something. A girl as strong as you doesn't collapse without a reason." She dropped her hands and sat up. Her face was brought on a level with his, the swollen eyes blinking through tears, the mouth twisted and pitiful. "It's pain, it's pain, Charlie," she quavered. "Then you _are_ sick," he said, now thoroughly alarmed.