sprained, her ankle, and he explained how the difference
was all the difference in the world, as he bound the ankle up with a
long ribbon of india-rubber, and issued directions for care and quiet.

He left them there, and Maxwell heard him below in parley, apparently
with the actress at her door. Louise lay with her head on her husband's
arm, and held his other hand tight in hers, while he knelt by the bed.
The bliss of repentance and mutual forgiveness filled both their hearts,
while she told him how she had hurt herself.

"I had got down to the last step, and I was putting my foot to the
pavement, and I thought, Now I am going to turn my ankle. Wasn't it
strange? And I turned it. How did you get me upstairs?"

"The janitor carried you."

"How lucky he happened to be there! I suppose the hall-boy kept me from
falling--poor little fellow! You must give him some money. How did you
find out about me?"

"He ran up to tell," Maxwell said this, and then he hesitated. "I guess
you had better know all about it. Can you bear something disagreeable,
or would you rather wait--"

"No, no, tell me now! I can't bear to wait. What is it?"

"It wasn't the hall-boy that caught you. It was that--woman."

He felt her neck and hand grow rigid, but he went on, and told her all
about it. At the end some quiet tears came into her eyes. "Well, then,
we must be civil to her. I am glad you told me at once, Brice!" She
pulled his head down and kissed him, and he was glad, too.

XV.

Louise sent Maxwell down to Mrs. Harley's apartment to thank her, and
tell her how slight the accident was; and while he was gone she
abandoned herself to an impassioned dramatization of her own death from
blood-poisoning, and her husband's early marriage with the actress, who
then appeared in all his plays, though they were not happy together. Her
own spectre was always rising between them, and she got some fearful joy
out of that. She counted his absence by her heart-beats, but he came
back so soon that she was ashamed, and was afraid that he had behaved so
as to give the woman a notion that he was not suffered to stay longer.
He explained that he had found her gloved and bonneted to go out, and
that he had not stayed for fear of keeping her. She had introduced him
to her mother, who was civil about Louise's accident, and they had both
begged him to let them do anything they could for her. He made his
observations, and when Louise, after a moment