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“I believe you, Elizabeth.”

“One of the nurses here says—-Jerry, won’t you look at me?” With some difficulty he met her eyes. “She says that because one starts wrong one needn’t go wrong always. I was ashamed to write. She made me do it.”

She held out an appealing hand, but he did not take it. All his life he had built up a house of morality. Now his house was crumbling and he stood terrified in the wreck. “It isn’t only because I’ve been hurt that I–am sorry,” she went on. “I loathed it! I’d have finished it all long ago, only–I was afraid.”

“I would rather have found you dead!”

There is a sort of anesthesia of misery. After a certain amount of suffering the brain ceases to feel. Jerry watched the white curtain of the screen swaying in the wind, settled his collar, glanced at his watch. He was quite white. The girl’s hand still lay on the coverlet. Somewhere back in the numbed brain that would think only little thoughts he knew that if he touched that small, appealing hand the last wall of his house would fall.

It was the Dummy, after all, who settled that for him. He came with his afternoon offering of cracked ice just then and stood inside the screen, staring. Perhaps he had known all along how it would end, that this, his saint, would go–and not alone–to join the vanishing circle that had ringed the inner circle of his heart. Just at the time it rather got him. He swayed a little and clutched at the screen; but the next moment he had placed the bowl on the stand and stood smiling down at the girl.

“The only person in the world who believes in me!” said the girl bitterly. “And he’s a fool!”

The Dummy smiled into her eyes. In his faded, childish eyes there was the eternal sadness of his kind, eternal tenderness, and the blur of one who has looked much into a far distance. Suddenly he bent over and placed the man’s hand over the girl’s.

The last wall was down! Jerry buried his face in the white coverlet.

* * * * *

The interne was pacing the roof anxiously. Golden sunset had faded to lavender–to dark purple–to night.

The Probationer came up at last–not a probationer now, of course; but she had left off her cap and was much less stately.

“I’m sorry,” she explained; “but I’ve been terribly busy. It went off so well!”

“Of course–if you handled it.”

“You know–don’t you?–it was the lover who came. He looks so strong and good–oh, she is safe now!”

“That’s fine!” said the interne absently. They were sitting on the parapet now and by sliding his hand along he found her fingers. “Isn’t it a glorious evening?” He had the fingers pretty close by that time; and suddenly gathering them up he lifted the hand to his lips.

“Such a kind little hand!” he said over it. “Such a dear, tender little hand! My hand!” he said, rather huskily.

Down in the courtyard the Dummy sat with the parrot on his knee. At his feet the superintendent’s dog lay on his side and dreamed of battle. The Dummy’s eyes lingered on the scar the Avenue Girl had bandaged–how long ago!

His eyes wandered to the window with the young John among the lilies. In the stable were still the ambulance horses that talked to him without words. And he had the parrot. If he thought at all it was that his Father was good and that, after all, he was not alone. The parrot edged along his knee and eyed him with saturnine affection.