done it better; it had bled copiously, but she judged it not to be
dangerous. She washed it and made a bandage for it out of a couple of
the patient's shirts, and he found himself a good deal more
comfortable. He lay back on his bed with some of the color restored
to his face, and watched her as she moved here and there about the
room with eyes that were trustful and slavish.

"Well," said Miss Gregory, when she had completed an examination of
the apartment, "there doesn't seem to be much more one can do.
They'll come back, I suppose? But of course they will. How much money
have you got about you?"

"About two thousand pounds, ma'am," he said, meekly.

"H'm!" Miss Gregory thought a moment. "And they know it? Of course."
She added her little sharp nod of certainty. "Well, when they come
we'll attend to them."

There was a tiny mirror hanging from a nail, and she went to it,
patted her grey hair to neatness, and re-established her felt hat on
top of it. The place was as still as the grave; no noise reached it
from without. The one candle at the bedside threw her shadow
monstrously up the wall; while she fumbled with her hatpins it
pictured a looming giantess brandishing weapons.

She was still at the mirror, with hatpins held in her mouth, when the
steps of the robbers made themselves heard. The man on the bed
started up on his elbow, with wide eyes and a sagging mouth. Miss
Gregory quelled him with a glance, then crossed the floor and blew
the candle out. In the darkness she laid her hat down that it might
not come to harm, and put a reassuring hand on the youth's shoulder,
it was quaking, and she murmured him a caution to keep quiet.
Together, with breath withheld, they heard the men in the entry of
the house, three of them, coming guardedly. Miss Gregory realized
that this was the real onslaught; they would be nerved for shrieks
this time. She took her hand from the youth's shoulder with another
whispered word, and stepped to the middle of the room and stood
motionless. The noise of breathing reached her, then a foot shuffled,
and on the instant somebody sprang forward and shoved the door wide.

The jug and basin smashed splendidly; whoever it fell on uttered a
little shrill yell and paused, confounded by the darkness. Miss
Gregory, her eyes more tuned to it, could make out the blur of white
clothes; with noiseless feet she moved towards them. She was all
purpose and directness; no tremor disturbed her. As calm