The quiet figure on the bed stirred.  Instantly the boy had forgotten himself, remembered only Granny.

He bent over her.

“Granny, don’t you know me?  It’s Teddy,” he pleaded.

The white lips quivered into a faint smile.  The frail hand on the cover lid groped vaguely for his.

“I know—­Teddy,” the lips formed slowly with an effort.

Ted kissed her, tears in his eyes.

“Be—­a man, dear,” the lips breathed softly.  “Be—­” and Granny was off again to a world of unconsciousness from which she had returned a moment to give her message to the grief stricken lad by her side.

To Ted in his overwrought condition the words were almost like a voice from heaven, a sacred command.  To be a man meant to face the hardest thing he had ever had to face in his life.  It meant marrying Madeline Taylor, not leaving her like a coward to pay by herself for something which he himself had helped to start.  He rose softly and went to the window, staring out into the night.  A few moments later he turned back wearing a strange uplifted sort of look, a look perhaps such, as Percival bore when he beheld the Grail.

Strange forces were at work in the House on the Hill that night.  Ruth had gone to her room to rest as Ted bade her but she had not slept in spite of her intense weariness.  She had almost lost the way of sleep latterly.  She was always so afraid of not being near when Larry needed her.  The night watches they had shared so often now had brought them very, very close to each other, made their love a very sacred as well as very strong thing.

Ruth knew that the time was near now when she would have to go away from the Hill.  After Granny went there would be no excuse for staying on.  If she did not go Larry would.  Ruth knew that very well and did not intend the latter should happen.

She had laid her plans well.  She would go and take a secretarial course somewhere.  She had made inquiries and found that there was always demand for secretaries and that the training did not take so long as other professional education did.  She could sell her rings and live on the money they brought her until she was self supporting.  She did not want to dispose of her pearls if she could help it.  She wanted to hold on to them as the link to her lost past.  Yes, she would leave the Hill.  It was quite the right thing to do.

But oh, what a hard thing it was!  She did not see how she was ever going to face life alone under such hard, queer conditions without Doctor Philip, without dear Mrs. Margery and the children, without Larry, especially without Larry.  For that matter what would Larry do without her?  He needed her so, loved her so much.  Poor Larry!

And suddenly Ruth sat up in bed.  As clearly as if he had been in the room with her she heard Larry’s voice calling to her.  She sprang up and threw a dark blue satin negligee around her, went out of the room, down the stairs, seeming to know by an infallible instinct where her lover was.