!"

The words rang meaningless in her ears, for she was dazed beyond the
power of thought. The running figure drew nearer and nearer, still
waving its hands, still calling out that agonised cry. The girls
disappeared to right and left, but the figure itself was close at hand--
closer--closer--at her very side. Then came a shock, a jar. Evie's
tottering figure fell forward over her own; Evie's shriek of anguish
rang in her ears, and then came blackness--a blackness as of death!

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

THE CONSEQUENCES.

When Rhoda opened her eyes she was lying in a strange bed, and some one
was sitting by her side, anxiously watching her face. It was not Nurse
_par excellence_, but the matron of another house, whose features seemed
unfamiliar, despite their kindly expression.

"You are better? You feel rested now?" she questioned, and Rhoda
struggled wearily to form a a reply.

"My head aches. I feel--tired!"

"Yes, yes, of course. Don't speak, but lie quite still; I will stay
beside you."

A soothing hand was pressed upon her own, and once again her eyes
closed, and she floated away into that strange, dream-like world.
Sometimes all was blank, at other times she was dimly conscious of what
went on around, as when voices murmured together by her side, and Nurse
related how she had spoken and answered a question, and the doctor
declared in reply that she was better, decidedly better! She was heavy
and weary, and had no desire but to be left alone, while time passed by
in a curious, dizzy fashion, light and darkness succeeding each other
with extraordinary celerity. Then gradually all became clear; she was
lying in the sick room where patients suffering from non-infectious
complaints were taken. The pressure at her head was giving way,
allowing glimmering flashes of memory. What was it?--a terrible,
terrible nightmare; a horror as of falling from a great height; a
sudden, numbing crash... Where has she been? What had she done? And
then with another struggling gleam--the toboggan!

Her cry of distress brought the nurse to her side, while she gasped out
a feeble--

"I remember! I was tobogganing.--I was too quick. I suppose I fell?"

"Yes, you fell, but you are better now; you are getting on finely. Just
keep quiet, and you will be up again in a few days."

There was a tone of relief in the good woman's voice as though there had
been another remembrance which she had feared to hear, but Rho