"It's only a little strip, but it's the stars," said she, looking up
to the sky between the houses. "They're so quiet and calm and big."

She seemed to Orde for the first time like a little girl. The
maturer complexities which we put on with years, with experience,
and with the knowledge of life had for the moment fallen from her,
leaving merely the simple soul of childhood gazing in its eternal
wonder at the stars. A wave of tenderness lifted Orde from his
feet. He leaned over, his breath coming quickly.

"Carroll!" he said.

She looked up at him, and shrank back.

"No, no! You mustn't," she cried. She did not pretend to
misunderstand. The preliminaries seemed in some mysterious fashion
to have been said long ago.

"It's life or death with me," he said.

"I must not," she cried, fluttering like a bird. "I promised myself
long ago that I must always, ALWAYS take care of mother."

"Please, please, dear," pleaded Orde. He had nothing more to say
than this, just the simple incoherent symbols of pleading; but in
such crises it is rather the soul than the tongue that speaks. His
hand met hers and closed about it. It did not respond to his grasp,
nor did it draw away, but lay limp and warm and helpless in his own.

She shook her head slowly.