"Here, mamma, take my
place. Let me hide before all those men come in."

In a moment she had leaped through the window, whence she ran through
the dewy grass to her home.

An hour afterward her mother returned, escorted by one of the surgeons.
She found Alice in bed, peacefully sleeping. As Mrs. Belding approached
the bedside, Alice woke and smiled. "I know without your telling me,
mamma. He will live. I began to pray for him,--but I felt sure he would
live, and so I gave thanks instead."

"You are a strange girl," said Mrs. Belding, gravely. "But you are
right. Dr. Cutts says, if he escapes without fever, there is nothing
very serious in the wound itself. The blow that made that gash in his
head was not the one which made him unconscious. They found another,
behind his ear; the skin was not broken. There was a bump about as big
as a walnut. They said it was concussion of the brain, but no fracture
anywhere. By the way, Dr. Cutts complimented me very handsomely on the
way I had managed the case before his arrival. He said there was
positively a professional excellence about my bandage. You may imagine
I did not set him right."

Alice, laughing and blushing, said, "I will allow you all the credit."

Mrs. Belding kissed her, and said, "Good-night," and walked to the
door. There she paused a moment, and came back to the bed. "I think,
after all, I had better say now what I thought of keeping till
to-morrow. I thank you for your confidence to-night, and shall respect
it. But you will see, I am sure, the necessity of being very
circumspect, under the circumstances. If you should want to do
anything for Arthur while he is ill, I should feel it my duty to forbid
it."

Alice received this charge with frank, open eyes. "I should not dream
of such a thing," she said. "If he had died, I should have been his
widow; but, as he is to live, he must come for me if he wants me. I was
very silly about him, but I must take the consequences. I can't now
take advantage of the poor fellow, by saving his life and establishing
a claim on it. So I will promise anything you want. I am so happy that
I will promise easily. But I am also very sleepy."

The beautiful eyelids were indeed heavy and drooping. The night's
excitement had left her wearied and utterly content. She fell asleep
even as her mother kissed her forehead.

The feeling of Offitt as he left Algonquin Avenue and struck into a
side street was one of pure exultation. He had