"Ab-solutely must!" he answered softly, nodding so sleepily that she
almost expected him to yawn. "You really can't go out again to-night,
you know," he added. Hermione's blue eyes flashed, her delicate brows
knit themselves, and Mr. Ravenslee saw that she was taller than he had
thought.

"You mean you will--try to stop me?" she demanded.

"No, I mean that I--will stop you!"

"But you'd never dare--"

"I would dare even your anger in so good a cause. Ah, please don't be
angry with me, Miss Hermione, because--" and here his sleepy voice grew
positively slumberous, "you shall not go out into the streets again
to-night!"

"Ah, an' that's right too, Mr. Geoffrey!" cried Mrs. Trapes. "Hermy
needs some one strong enough to master her now an' then, she is that
wilful, she is so!"

But now all at once, as he watched, Hermione's eyes filled with great,
slow-gathering tears, her firm-set lips grew soft and quivered
pitifully, and she sank down in the easy-chair, her golden head bowed
upon the green and yellow tablecloth. The battered hat tumbled to the
floor, and striding forward, he had bent and caught one of her listless
hands all in a moment, and thereafter, though it struggled feebly once,
he held it closely prisoned in his own.