“I’m so afraid,” she moaned.  “Oh, Kate, I’m so terribly, terribly afraid!  I know I’ll fail.”

Kate strangled down, “The best thing that could happen to you”; and said instead, “You aren’t going about the thing in the best way to succeed.”

“I’ve done all I could,” moaned her friend.  “I’ve only allowed myself four hours a night for sleep; and have hardly taken out time for meals.  I’ve concentrated as it seems to me no one ever concentrated before.”

“Oh, Lena, Lena!” Kate cried compassionately.  “Can it really be that you have so little sense, after all?  Oh, you poor little drowned rat, you.”  She bent over her, pulled the worn slippers from her feet, and thrust her beneath the covers.

“No, no!” protested Lena.  “You mustn’t, Kate!  I’ve got to get at my books.”

“Say another word and I’ll throw them out of the window,” cried Kate, really aroused.  “Lie down there.”

Lena began again to sob, but this time with helpless anger, for Kate looked like a grenadier as she towered there in the small room and it was easy to see that she meant to be obeyed.  She explored Lena’s cupboard for supplies, and found, after some searching, a can of soup and the inevitable crackers.  She heated the soup, toasted the crackers, and forced Lena to eat.  Then she extinguished the lamp, with its poisonous odor, and, wrapping herself in her cloak threw open the window and sat in the gloom, softly chatting about this and that.  Lena made no coherent answers.  She lay in sullen torment, casting tearful glances at her benevolent oppressor.

But Kate had set her will to conquer that of her friend and Lena’s hysteric opposition was no match for it.  Little by little the tense form beneath the blankets relaxed.  Her stormily drawn breath became more even.  At last she slept, which gave Kate an opportunity to slip out to buy a new tube for the lamp and adjust it properly.  She felt quite safe in lighting it, for Lena lay in complete exhaustion, and she took the liberty of looking over the clothes which were bundled into an improvised closet on the back of the door.  Everything was in wretched condition.  Buttons and hooks were lacking; a heap of darning lay untouched; Lena’s veil, with which she attempted to hide the ruin of her hat, was crumpled into the semblance of a rain-soaked cobweb; and her shoes had gone long without the reassurance of a good blacking.

Kate put some irons over the stove which served Lena as a cooking-range, and proceeded on a campaign of reconstruction.  It was midnight when she finished, and she was weary and heartsick.  The little, strained face on the pillow seemed to belong to one whom the furies were pursuing.  Yet nothing was pursuing her save her own fanatical desire for a thing which, once obtained, would avail her nothing.  She had not personality enough to meet life on terms which would allow her one iota of leadership.  She was discountenanced by her inherent drabness:  beaten by the limits of her capacity.  When Kate had ordered the room,—­scrupulously refraining from touching any of Lena’s papers,—­she opened the window and, putting the catch on the door, closed it softly behind her.