r, everybody acted for the best, and here
I am. And if you ask me, I think I've come out of it rather well."

He dropped heavily on to the Chesterfield. What she could see of his
cheeks was very pale.

"Open the window," he murmured. "It's frightfully stuffy here."

"The window is open," she said. In fact, a noticeable draught blew
through the room. "I'll open it a bit more."

Before doing so she lifted his feet on to the Chesterfield.

"That's better. That's better," he breathed.

When, a moment later, she returned to him with a glass of water which
she had brought from the kitchen, spilling drops of it along the whole
length of the passage, he smiled at her and then winked.

It was the wink that seemed pathetic to her. She had maintained her
laudable calm until he winked, and then her throat tightened.

"He may have some dreadful internal injury," she thought. "You never
know. I may be a widow soon. And every one will say, 'How young she is
to be a widow!' It will make me blush. But such things can't happen to
me. No, he's all right. He came up here alone. They'd never have let
him come up here alone if he hadn't been all right. Besides, he can
walk. How silly I am!"

She bent down and kissed him passionately.

"I must have those bandages off, dearest," she whispered. "I suppose
to-morrow I'd better return them to Mrs. Heath."

He muttered: "She said she always kept linen for bandages in the
shop because they so often cut themselves. Now, I used to think in my
innocence that butchers never cut themselves."

Very gently and intently Rachel unfastened two safety-pins that were
hidden in Louis' untidy hair. Then she began to unwind a long strip
of linen. It stuck to a portion of the cheek close to the ear. Louis
winced. The inner folds of the linen were discoloured. Rachel had a
glimpse of a wound....

"Go on!" Louis urged. "Get at it, child!"

"No," she said. "I think I shall leave it just as it is for the doctor
to deal with. Shall you mind if I leave you for a minute? I must get
some warm water and things ready against the doctor comes."

He retorted facetiously: "Oh! Do what you like! Work your will on
me.... Doctor! Any one 'ud think I was badly injured. Why, you cuckoo,
it's only skin wounds!"

"But doesn't it _hurt_?"

"Depends what you call hurt. It ain't a picnic."

"I think you're awfully brave," she said simply.

At the door she stopped and gazed at him, undecided.

"Louis," she said i