ding her arms up as though to shield herself.

The next instant she was straining, twisting in his arms, striving to
cry out, to wrench herself free to keep her feet amid the crash of the
overturned table and a falling chair.

"Jose! Are you insane?" she panted, tearing herself free and springing
toward the door. Suddenly she halted, uttered a cry as he jumped back to
block her way. The low window-ledge caught him under both knees; he
clutched at nothing, reeled backward and outward and fell into space.

For a second she covered her white face with both hands, then turned,
dragged herself to the open window, forced herself to look out.

He lay on his back on the grass in the rear yard, and the janitor was
already bending over him. And when she reached the yard Querida had
opened both eyes.

Later the ambulance came, and with its surgeon came a policeman.
Querida, lying with his head on her lap, opened his eyes again:

"I was--seated--on the window-ledge," he said with difficulty--"and
overbalanced myself.... Caught the table--but it fell over.... That's
all."

The eyes in his ghastly face closed wearily, then fluttered:

"Awfully sorry, Valerie--make such a mess--in your house."

"Oh-h--Jose," she sobbed.

After that they took him away to the Presbyterian Hospital; and nobody
seemed to find very much the matter with him except that he'd been badly
shocked.

But the next day all sensation ceased in his body from the neck
downward.

And they told Valerie why.

For ten days he lay there, perfectly conscious, patient, good-humored,
and his almond-shaped and hollow eyes rested on Valerie and Rita with a
fatalistic serenity subtly tinged with irony.

John Burleson came to see him, and cried. After he left, Querida said to
Valerie:

"John and I are destined to remain near neighbours; his grief is well
meant, but a trifle premature."

"You are not going to die, Jose!" she said gently.

But he only smiled.

Ogilvy came, Annan came, the Countess Helene, and even Mrs.
Hind-Willet. He inspected them all with his shadowy and mysterious
smile, answered them gently deep in his sunken eyes a sombre amusement
seemed to dwell. But there was in it no bitterness.

Then Neville came. Valerie and Rita were absent that day but their roses
filled the private ward-room with a hint of the coming summer.

Querida lay looking at Neville, the half smile resting on his pallid
face like a slight shadow that faintly waxed and