“But you must eat, sweetheart . . . You must keep up your strength . . . And if you are good this morning, Mr. De Lakes will help you also with other things. . . . See what a kind and friendly man he is! He understands our problem, dear, also . . . He has not been immune either . . . to problems . . .”

At that moment Sidney’s spine froze for the youth let out a cry like that of a wild animal which feels a bullet graze its skull. Mrs. Vaisey closed her eyes.

“You must and shall eat,” she said after a pause, and rose.

The youth shook his head, or what now appeared to Sidney as his mane for with his shock of yellow hair he was so like some forest beast.

“We will not put it on, dear heart, if you will only eat.”

Another savage cry came from his throat, which was distended with veins and arteries standing out in clear outlines.

Irene rang, and the servant who had been standing outside returned with a kind of strait jacket, which he quickly and expertly threw over the young man.

Sidney felt faint; ice cold drops of sweat fell from his armpits as they had done in prison. But he was determined to stick it out, he did not wish to return to Vance in failure, and furthermore he wanted somehow to be near this strange troubled boy who did not want food to sustain life.

“Just one piece of bread, that’s all you need eat, darling . . . Just one crumb then, see, from my hands . . .”

With consummate skill Mrs. Vaisey forced open her son’s mouth and placed on his tongue a piece of bread, and then pushed his jaws shut.

“Chew, Gareth . . . Chew!”

His mouth dripping with saliva, he made a supreme effort to masticate the bread while his wide, terrified eyes roved in the direction of Sidney.

Suddenly he moved his head vigorously toward the new “caretaker.”

“You wish Sidney to give you your breakfast?”

Gareth’s eyes widened eloquently.

“I believe he wishes you to give him his breakfast,” Mrs. Vaisey turned to Sidney.

Sidney rose, and looking at Mrs. Vaisey for encouragement and instruction, he lifted a piece of bread to the boy’s mouth. He accepted it and chewed the bread.

“Another, perhaps?” Mrs. Vaisey inquired in a faint voice, hardly that of a whisper.

Sidney had already put another piece of bread in his mouth. He chewed and swallowed this also. Finally a whole slice of bread had been thus laboriously fed to him.

Then as Sidney was withdrawing his hand, the boy took Sidney’s index and middle finger and held them with his bared teeth. Mrs. Vaisey immediately went up to the boy, but there was at present no indication of a wish to hurt or bite, he merely held the fingers gently in his mouth. It was Sidney’s benign calm attitude which prevented Mrs. Vaisey from doing more at the moment. Indeed she waited as calm and resigned as if she had discovered the two of them at prayer.