And now indeed he had her in his arms, although he was utterly unaware of it.  He was trying to comfort and soothe her, as he would soothe a little child who had been frightened.  Not only his handkerchief but his hands were called into requisition to charm away those tears and comfort the pitiful little face that looked so streaked and pink and helpless there against his shoulder.  He wanted to stoop and lay his lips on those trembling ones.  Perhaps Gila thought he would.  But he would not take advantage of her moment of helplessness.  Not until she was herself and could give him permission would he avail himself of that sacred privilege.  Now it was the part of a man to comfort her without any element of self in the matter.

When he had drawn her down upon the couch again, with the sobs still shaking her soft blue-and-white frilly breast, her blue-black hair all damp and tossed upon her temples, and tried to tell her how sorry he was that he had put her through the horrors of that fire, she put in a quivering protest.  It was not the fire.  She shivered.  It was not the horror and the smoke!  It was not Stephen’s death, nor the danger to himself!  It was not any of those that had unnerved her!  It was that other awful thing he had said:  that ghostly, ghastly, uncanny, dreadful story of a Presence!  She almost shrieked again as she said it, and she shivered away from him, as if still there were something cold and clammy in his touch that gave her the horrors.

A cold disappointment settled down upon him.  She had not understood.  He looked at her, troubled, disappointed, baffled.  It was not possible, then, for him to bring her this knowledge that he wished so much for her to have.  It was a thing that one could tell about to one’s friends, but could not give to them.  It was something they must take for themselves, must feel and see by themselves!  With new illumination he turned to her and said in a voice wonderfully tender for a man so young: 

“Listen, Gila!  I have been clumsy in telling you!  You cannot see it just from my poor story.  But He will come to you and you shall see Him for yourself!  I will ask Him to come to you as He has to me!”

Again that piercing scream, and with a quick, lithe movement, almost like a serpent, she slid from his side and stood quivering in the middle of the room, her eyes flashing, her body shrinking, both little hands clenched at her throat.

“Stop!” she cried.  “Stop!” and screamed again, stamping her foot.  “I won’t hear such horrible things!  I won’t have any spirits coming around me!  I won’t see them!  Do you understand?  I hate that Presence, and I hate you when you talk like that!”