approached, firm,
elastic steps. Gertrude quickly seized the dog by the collar. "Down,
Diana!" she cried, hoarse with terror, and then a figure passed the
bright light of the window, and brushing close by her went into the
house.

Frank! He was alive--thank God! But he was hurt, he kept his arm
pressed so closely to his side. Ah, but he was alive! and now, now she
could go again quietly and unperceived as she had come. There were
plenty of hands in there to bind up his wounds, to--

She shivered again as if in fever.

"Come," she said to the whining dog, and she got up and turned away
towards the darker paths, but the dog pressed eagerly toward the house,
and almost as if she knew not what she was doing she suffered herself
to be dragged forward by him.

At length she reached the steps and in another moment she was mounting
them. Only one look inside, only to see if he really was suffering, if
he really was alive! And holding the impatient animal still more firmly
she passed noiselessly across the stone terrace; then she leaned
against the door-post and peeped through the glass, trembling with
emotion, timorous as a thief, full of longing as a child on Christmas
Eve.

The room looked just as usual, the carpets, the pictures, all just as
she had left it; within were people hurrying busily to and fro, and by
the table near the lamp he was sitting, his face, pale and drawn with
pain, turned full towards the door. And beside him, bending over him,
and binding up his arm with all the charming grace of an anxious and
tender wife, was the agile little creature in a black dress and white
apron, her bunch of keys stuck in her girdle. How skilfully she laid on
the bandage! With what supple, tapering fingers she fastened it! How
nearly her dark hair touched his face!

And this must be done by other hands than these that she was wringing
so here outside!

A joyful bark sounded beside her, and the dog broke away from her
trembling fingers with a sudden spring and bounded against the door so
that it shook. She started to flee in terror, but her strength failed
her; the ground seemed to sway under her feet, half-unconscious she
could still hear the door hastily torn open, and then she lost
consciousness altogether.

CHAPTER XXI.

Gertrude awoke, just as the day began to dawn, from a deep dreamless
sleep. She was not ill, and she knew perfectly well what had happened
to her the evenin