n called in when a revel had ended in
suicide or death; and if he had never before seen a man caught in a
flying-machine, he had been used to heal wounds quite as dreadful caused
by engines of a more familiar nature.

Though Barton, therefore, could go out to his round of visits on the day
after his adventurous vigil without unusual emotion, it may be conceived
that the distress and confusion at _The Bunhouse_ were very great. The
police and the gloomy attendants on Death were in the place; Mrs.
St. John Deloraine had to see many official people, to answer many
disagreeable questions, and suffered in every way extremely from the
consequences of her beneficent enterprise. But she displayed a coolness
and businesslike common sense worthy of a less versatile philanthropist,
and found time, amid the temporary ruin of her work, to pay due
attention to Margaret. She had scarcely noticed the girl before, taking
her very much on trust, and being preoccupied with various schemes of
social enjoyment. But now she was struck by her beauty and her educated
manner, though that, to be sure, was amply accounted for by the
explanations offered by Cranley before her engagement. Already Mrs. St.
John Deloraine was conceiving a project of perpetual friendship, and had
made up her mind to adopt Margaret as a daughter, or, let us say, niece
and companion. The girl was too refined to cope with the rough-and-ready
young patronesses of _The Bunhouse_.

If the lady's mind was even more preoccupied by the survivor in the
hideous events of the evening than by the tragedy itself and the dead
woman, Barton, too, found his thoughts straying to his new patient--not
that he was a flirt or a sentimentalist. Even in the spring Barton's
fancy did not lightly turn to thoughts of love. He was not one of those
"amatorious" young men (as Milton says, perhaps at too great length) who
cannot see a pretty girl without losing their hearts to her. Barton was
not so prodigal of his affections; yet it were vain to deny that, as he
went his rather drowsy round of professional visits, his ideas were more
apt to stray to the girl who had been stabbed, than to the man who had
been rescued from the machinery. The man was old, yellow, withered,
and, in Barton's private opinion, more of a lunatic charlatan than a
successful inventor. The girl was young, beautiful, and interesting
enough, apart from her wound, to demand and secure a place in any fancy
absolutely free.

I