urned its way down his throat and seethed into his brain,
and a great darkness, mingled with men's wrangling voices and much
cursing, swirled about him like some furious torrent of angry waters
that finally submerged his consciousness. Then came deeper darkness and
a blank relief from pain.

Hours passed. He heard sounds sometimes, and dreamed dreams which he
could not tell from reality. He saw his friends with terror written on
their faces, while he lay apathetically and could not stir. He saw tears
on Margaret's face; and once he was sure he heard Forsythe's voice in
contempt: "Well, he seems to be well occupied for the present! No danger
of his waking up for a while!" and then the voices all grew dim and far
away again, and only an old crone and the harsh girl's whisper over him;
and then Margaret's tears--tears that fell on his heart from far above,
and seemed to melt out all his early sins and flood him with their
horror. Tears and the consciousness that he ought to be doing something
for Margaret now and could not. Tears--and more darkness!

CHAPTER XXV

When Margaret arrived behind the curtain she was aware of many cries and
questions hurled at her like an avalanche, but, ignoring them all, she
sprang past the noisy, excited group of young people, darted through the
dressing-room to the right and out into the night and coolness. Her head
was swimming, and things went black before her eyes. She felt that her
breath was going, going, and she must get to the air.

But when she passed the hot wave of the school-room, and the sharp air
of the night struck her face, consciousness seemed to turn and come back
into her again; for there over her head was the wideness of the vast,
starry Arizona night, and there, before her, in Nick Bottom's somber
costume, eating one of the chicken sandwiches that Mrs. Tanner had sent
down to her, stood Gardley! He was pale and shaken from his recent
experience; but he was undaunted, and when he saw Margaret coming toward
him through the doorway with her soul in her eyes and her spirit all
aflame with joy and relief, he came to meet her under the stars, and,
forgetting everything else, just folded her gently in his arms!

It was a most astonishing thing to do, of course, right there outside
the dressing-room door, with the curtain just about to rise on the scene
and Gardley's wig was not on yet. He had not even asked nor obtained
permission. But the soul sometimes grows impati