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Rh sentences told him all, and at the end of them he left the house at once.

"I am going there to show myself to them," he said. "They will not return here. You are safe enough now. The worst is over here, but there is no knowing what they may do there when they find themselves baffled."

It was after midnight when he came back, and then it was Christian who opened the door for him.

He came into the little dark passage with a slow, unsteady step. For a second he did not seem to see her at all. His face was white, his eyes were shining and his brow was slightly knit in lines which might have meant intense pain.

"Are you hurt?" she asked.

It was as if her voice wakened him from a trance. He looked at her for the first time.

"Hurt!" he echoed. "No—not hurt."

He went into the sitting-room and she followed him. The narrow horse-hair sofa upon which his father had lain so often stood in its old place. He threw himself full length upon it and lay looking straight before him.

"Are you—are you sure you are not hurt?" she faltered.

He echoed her words again.

"Am I sure I am not hurt?" he repeated dreamily. "Yes, I am sure of it."

And then he turned slightly toward her and she saw that the look his face wore was not one of pain, but of strange rapture.

"I am not hurt," he said quite slowly. "I am madly happy."

Then she understood. She was as ignorant of many things as she was bitterly wise in others, but she had not