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the hospital--a case of accident at the gas-works, and the dinner was
postponed an hour; so telling her I would stroll down to find her
master and walk back with him, I went out. At the hospital I found him
washing his hands preparatory to starting for home. Casually, I asked
him what his case was.

'Oh, the usual thing! A rotten rope and men's lives of no account. Two
men were working in a gasometer, when the rope that held their
scaffolding broke. It must have occurred just before the dinner hour,
for no one noticed their absence till the men had returned. There was
about seven feet of water in the gasometer, so they had a hard fight
for it, poor fellows. However, one of them was alive, just alive, but
we have had a hard job to pull him through. It seems that he owes his
life to his mate, for I have never heard of greater heroism. They swam
together while their strength lasted, but at the end they were so done
up that even the lights above, and the men slung with ropes, coming
down to help them, could not keep them up. But one of them stood on
the bottom and held up his comrade over his head, and those few
breaths made all the difference between life and death. They were a
shocking sight when they were taken out, for that water is like a
purple dye with the gas and the tar. The man upstairs looked as if he
had been washed in blood. Ugh!'

'And the other?'

'Oh, he's worse still. But he must have been a very noble fellow. That
struggle under the water must have been fearful; one can see that by
the way the blood has been drawn from the extremities. It makes the
idea of the _Stigmata_ possible to look at him. Resolution like this
could, you would think, do anything in the world. Ay! it might almost
unbar the gates of Heaven. Look here, old man, it is not a very
pleasant sight, especially just before dinner, but you are a writer,
and this is an odd case. Here is something you would not like to miss,
for in all human probability you will never see anything like it
again.' While he was speaking he had brought me into the mortuary of
the hospital.

On the bier lay a body covered with a white sheet, which was wrapped
close round it.

'Looks like a chrysalis, don't it? I say, Jack, if there be anything
in the old myth that a soul is typified by a butterfly, well, then the
one that this chrysalis sent forth was a very noble specimen and took
all the sunlight on its wings. See here!' He uncovered the face.
Horrible, i