w pain, but all my hope was in getting free.

At last, I got from under him and staggered to my knees. I was a very
babe for weakness then. I clutched at the tree-trunk for support and
raised myself to my feet. I looked down on the pale face of Joe Clark,
as he lay there, the moon on his face disclosing a great open gash on
his forehead.

Evidently, he had struck the tree, face on, with the same impact as I
had done backward.

"Oh, God!" I groaned. "He is dead, ... Joe Clark is..."

Then the blissful mists and darknesses came over me again and I
crumpled to the earth.

CHAPTER XXIV

Two Maids and a Man

When next I awoke, it was amid conflicting sensations of pains and
pleasantnesses. My eyes gradually took in my surroundings. Instead of
being in Heaven, or the other place of future abode as I fully expected
to be, I was lying on my own bed, in my own room, in a semi-darkness.

A quiet, shadowlike form was flitting about. I followed it with my
eyes for a while, enjoying the fact that it did not know that I was
watching it. Then it tip-toed toward me and bent over me.

All my doubts and fears departed. After all, I was in Heaven; for
Mary,--the Mary I so loved,--was bending over me, crooning to me, with
her face so near, and placing her cooling, soothing hand on my hot brow.

I must have tried to speak, for, as if far away, I could hear her
enjoining me not to talk, but just lie quiet and I would soon be well.

She put a spoon to my mouth and, sup by sup, something warm, good and
reviving slowly found its way down my throat.

What hard work it was opening my lips! What a dreadful task it was to
swallow and how heavy my feet and hands seemed!--so heavy, I could not
lift them.

As the singing voice crooned and hushed me, I grew, oh! so weary of the
labour of swallowing and breathing that I dropped away again into
glorious slumberland.

When again I opened my eyes, it was evening. My reading lamp was
burning dimly on a table, near by. The air was warm from a crackling
fire in the stove. Some one was kneeling at my bedside.

I looked along the sheets that covered me.

It was Mary.

All I could see of her head were the coils of her golden hair, for she
had my hand in both her own and her face was hidden on the bed-spread.
I could hear her voice whispering softly. She was praying. She
repeated my name ever so often. She was praying that I might be
allowed to live.

From that moment