motor for a doctor, wholly
forgetting her brother's expected visit in her anxiety.

Lord Percy ultimately returned with the local practitioner, whom he had
dragged almost by force from the bedside of a patient ten miles away. He,
too, had forgotten Jack, but remembered him as he set down the doctor,
and whirled away again in a cloud of dust, leaving him to announce
himself.

Chris had by that time recovered consciousness, in response to Hilda's
strenuous efforts, but she had scarcely spoken a word. She lay on the
sofa in the drawing-room, cold from head to foot, and shivering
spasmodically at intervals. She drank the wine that Hilda brought her
with shuddering docility; but it seemed to have no effect upon her. It
was as if the blood had frozen at her very heart.

"Get her to bed," were the doctor's orders, and he himself carried Chris
up to Hilda's room.

She was perfectly passive in their hands, but quite incapable of the
smallest effort, and so painfully apathetic that Hilda grew more and more
uneasy. She had never imagined that her gay, light-hearted Chris could be
thus. It wrung her heart to see her. She was like a dainty flower crushed
into the dust of the highway.

"Nervous prostration consequent upon severe mental strain," was the
doctor's verdict later. "You will have to take great care of her, and
keep her absolutely quiet, or I can't be answerable for the consequences.
She is in a very critical state, and"--he paused a moment--"I think her
husband ought to be with her."

"Ah!" Hilda said, and no more.

He passed the matter over. "Don't let her talk at all if you can prevent
it, and reassure her in every way possible. I will send a composing
draught, or she will be in a high fever before the morning."

"You fear for the brain?" Hilda hazarded.

"I fear--many things," he answered uncompromisingly.

He took his departure just as Lord Percy and his guest arrived, and Hilda
paused upon the step to greet her brother.

He sprang from the car before it came to a standstill, and she saw on the
instant that he was in a towering fury. Jack Forest, the kindly, the
easy-going, the careless, was actually white with anger.

He scarcely stopped to greet her. "Where is Chris?" he demanded.

"She is in bed," Hilda answered, seeing he had heard the whole story.
"No," as he turned inwards, "you can't see her. Indeed you mustn't, Jack.
The doctor says--"

"Damn the doctor!" said Jack. "I'm going to see her, in b