d, and what would you
have done then?"

"Not you," declared Jack. "That sort of thing does not go with your
stock. God knows what would have happened to me if I had had a silly
fool with me, for the blood was pumping out all over me. But, thank God,
I had a woman with a brave heart and clever hands."

When the doctor came, Mrs. Waring-Gaunt went in to assist him, but when
the ghastly bloody spectacle lay bare to her eyes she found herself grow
weak and hurried to the kitchen where the others were.

"Oh, I am so silly," she said, "but I am afraid I cannot stand the sight
of it."

Kathleen sprang at once to her feet. "Is there no one there?" she
demanded with a touch of impatience in her voice, and passed quickly
into the room, where she stayed while the doctor snipped off the frayed
patches of skin and flesh and tied up the broken arteries, giving aid
with quick fingers and steady hands till all was over.

"You have done this sort of thing before, Miss Gwynne?" said the doctor.

"No, never," she replied.

"Well, you certainly are a brick," he said, turning admiring eyes upon
her. He was a young man and unmarried. "But this is a little too much
for you." From a decanter which stood on a side table he poured out a
little spirits. "Drink this," he said.

"No, thank you, Doctor, I am quite right," said Kathleen, quietly
picking up the bloody debris and dropping them into a basin which she
carried into the other room. "He is all right now," she said to Mrs.
Waring-Gaunt, who took the basin from her, exclaiming,

"My poor dear, you are awfully white. I am ashamed of myself. Now you
must lie down at once."

"No, please, I shall go home, I think. Where is Nora?"

"Nora has gone home. You won't lie down a little? Then Tom shall take
you in the car. You are perfectly splendid. I did not think you had it
in you."

"Oh, don't, don't," cried the girl, a quick rush of tears coming to her
eyes. "I must go, I must go. Oh, I feel terrible. I don't know what I
have done. Let me go home." She almost pushed Mrs. Waring-Gaunt from her
and went out of the house and found Tom standing by the car smoking.

"Take her home, Tom," said his wife. "She needs rest."

"Come along, Kathleen; rest--well, rather. Get in beside me here. Feel
rather rotten, eh, what? Fine bit of work, good soldier--no, don't
talk--monologue indicated." And monologue it was till he delivered her,
pale, weary and spent, to her mother.

CHAPTER XIV

A