g fair hair. The heap was perfectly still,
perfectly silent.

"Is she--is she----?" Mark's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and
refused to finish the question when, tearing down the staircase, he
reached the hall, his face livid under the red hair. Oliver was stooping
over the senseless little figure, touching with frightened fingers now
the little face, then the still small hands.

"Fetch Euphemia, quick!" the boy said hoarsely.

Like an arrow Johnny fled through the green baize door, and then, with
an alarmed cry, old Euphemia ran into the hall.

"Oh, my pretty, my pretty!" Trembling like a leaf and ghastly white, the
old woman crouched down to gently feel each little limb. And as she did
so the boys covered their eyes to hide the sight.

"Did anyone of ye push her down? How was it, tell me true?"

"No, no; oh! nobody pushed her! She fell all the way down the
banisters!" several of the boys spoke together.

"We were playing at the funicular, and she lost her balance!" The last
words were sobbed out by Mark.

"Playing at the--what?" gasped Euphemia, in horror. "Boy!"--she clutched
Oliver's shoulder--"flee to the White House and fetch Doctor George. Say
it's life or death. The master's away for a long round on the hills at
the farms. Tell them that. Go!"

"But, Euphemia--Uncle George would refuse to come inside our door!"
stammered Oliver.

"Do as I bid ye, boy, and quick! Say to Dr. George these words from old
Euphemia: 'The Lord do unto you and yours as ye do unto us in this sore
need!' He will heed that message, if he's got a heart, not a stone, in
him!"

With a shuddering groan, Oliver ran out into the pelting rain,
bare-headed, on to the other end of Allonby Edge, where stood the White
House with the red lamp, the home of the other Doctor Carew, the brother
who had not spoken to Oliver's Father for three years.

As he raced along, with a heart beating in terror at what he had left
behind on the hall-floor, there flitted through the boy's brain the old
wondering curiosity as to what made the doctor-brothers such bitter
enemies.

* * * * *

In the dining-room of the White House a group of children were staring
idly out of the window, watching the village ducks, the only creatures
really enjoying the deluge of rain on that wet Saturday.

The table was spread for early dinner, and the appetising sniffs
stealing up from the kitchen reminded the other Carews that the