of one of the men's hunting-crops cut her across the
throat and bosom. The red-hot agony of it was unbearable, and as
Trenby bore her out of the yard he felt her body grow suddenly limp in
his arms and, glancing down, saw that she had lost consciousness.

When Nan came to herself again it was to find she was lying on a hard
little horse-hair sofa, and the first object upon which her eyes rested
was a nightmare arrangement of wax flowers, carefully preserved from
risk of damage by a glass shade.

She was feeling stiff and sore, and the strangeness of her surroundings
bewildered her--the sofa upholstered in slippery American cloth and
hard as a board to her aching limbs, the waxen atrocity beneath its
glass shade standing on a rickety table at the foot of the couch, the
smallness of the room in which she found herself.

"Where am I?" she asked in a weak voice that was hardly more than a
whisper.

Someone--a woman--said quickly: "Ah, she's coming round!" and bustled,
out of the room. Then came Roger's voice:

"You're all right, Nan--all right." And she felt his big hands close
round her two slender ones reassuringly. "Don't be frightened."

She raised her head to find Roger kneeling beside the sofa on which she
lay.

"I'm not frightened," she said. "Only--what's happened? . . . Oh, I
remember! I was in the yard with the hounds. Did one of them bite me?"

"Yes, Vengeance just caught your ankle. But we've bathed it
thoroughly--luckily he's only torn the skin a bit--and now I'm going to
bind it up for you. Mrs. Denman's just gone to fetch some stuff for me
to bind it with. You'll be quite all right again to-morrow."

With some difficulty Nan raised herself to a sitting position and
immediately caught sight of a bowl on the ground filled with an
ominous-looking reddish-coloured liquid.

"Good gracious! Has my foot been bleeding like that?" she asked, going
rather white.

"Bless you, no, my dear!" Mrs. Denman, a cheery-faced countrywoman,
had bustled in again, with some long strips of linen to serve as a
bandage. "Bless you, no! That's just a drop of Condy's fluid, that
is, so's your foot shouldn't get any poison in it."

"That's right, Mrs. Denman," said Roger. "Give me that linen stuff
now, and then get me some more hot water."

Nan watched him lift and skilfully bandage the slightly damaged foot.
He held it carefully, as though it were something very precious, but
delicate as was his handlin