A little thing to make her heart fall, one would say, but little things
about Terry were great things to Elizabeth. In twenty-four years he had
never locked his door. What could it mean?

It was a moment before she could call, and she waited breathlessly. She
was reassured by a quiet voice that answered her: "Just a moment. I'll
open."

The tone was so matter-of-fact that her heart, with one leap, came back
to normal and tears of relief misted her eyes for an instant. Perhaps he
was up here working out a surprise for the next day--he was full of
tricks and surprises. That was unquestionably it. And he took so long in
coming to the door because he was hiding the thing he had been working
on. As for food, Wu Chi was his slave and would have smuggled a tray up
to him. Presently the lock turned and the door opened.

She could not see his face distinctly at first, the light was so strong
behind him. Besides, she was more occupied in looking for the tray of
food which would assure her that Terry was not suffering from some mental
crisis that had made him forget even dinner. She found the tray, sure
enough, but the food had not been touched.

She turned on him with a new rush of alarm. And all her fears were
realized. Terry had been fighting a hard battle and he was still
fighting. About his eyes there was the look, half-dull and half-hard,
that comes in the eyes of young people unused to pain. A worried, tense,
hungry face. He took her arm and led her to the table. On it lay an
article clipped out of a magazine. She looked down at it with unseeing
eyes. The sheets were already much crumbled. Terry turned them to a full-