of condolence, and uttered no expressions of
regret or sympathy. She was apparently in a state of suppressed
excitement, and started at sounds and movements.

"Is Mr. Elkins very ill?" said she at length.

"So ill," said Alice, "that unless he rallies soon, we shall look for
the worst."

No more at this than at the other ill news did Josie express any regret
or concern. She sat with her fingers clasped together, gazing before her
at the fire in the grate, as if making some deep and abstruse
calculation. But when the door-bell rang, she started and listened
attentively, as the servant went to the door, and then returned to us.

"A gentleman, Mr. Cornish, to see Miss Trescott," said the maid. "And he
says he must see her for a moment."

"Alice," said Josie, under her breath, "you go, please! Say to him that
I cannot see him--now! Oh, why did he follow me here?"

"Josie," said Alice dramatically, "you don't mean to say that you are
afraid of this man! Are you?"

"No, no!" said the girl doubtfully and distressfully; "but it's so hard
to say 'No' to him! If you only knew all, Alice, you wouldn't blame
me--and you'd go!"

"If you're so far gone--under his influence," said Alice, "that you
can't trust yourself to say 'No,' Josephine Trescott, go, in Heaven's
name, and say 'Yes,' and be the wife of a millionaire--and a traitor and
scoundrel!"

As Alice said this she came perilously near the histrionic standard of
the tragic stage. Josie rose, looked at her in surprise, in which there
seemed to be some defiance, and walked steadily out to the parlor. I was
glad to be out of the affair, and went back to Jim. I stood regarding my
broken and forsaken friend, in watching whose uneasy sleep I forgot the
crisis downstairs, when I was startled and angered by the slamming of
the front door, and heard a carriage rattle furiously away down the
street.

Soon I heard the rustle of skirts, and looked up, thinking to see my
wife. But it was Josie. She came in, as if she were the regularly
ordained nurse, and stepped to the bedside of the sleeping patient. The
broken arm in its swathings lay partly uncovered; and across his wounded
brow was stretched a broad bandage, below which his face showed pale and
weary-looking, in the half-stupor of his deathlike slumber: for he had
become strangely quiet. His uninjured arm lay inertly on the
counterpane beside him.

She took his hand, and, seating herself on the bed, began softly
stroki