usanna ejaculated, turning so that she
might not be heard by the sufferer. "Take her in to my house."

"The hospital is really the most comfortable place for her, Mrs.
Fairfax," the doctor said guardedly. "I am afraid there is internal
injury. Her mind seems somewhat confused. You can't undertake the
responsibility--"

"Ah, but you can't jolt the poor thing all the way into town--" Susanna
began again. Mrs. Porter, at her shoulder, interrupted her in an
earnest whisper:

"Sue, dear, it's always done. It won't take very long, and nobody
expects you--"

"I know just how Susanna feels," interrupted Mrs. Ellis, "but after
all, you never can tell--we don't know one thing about her--"

"She'll be taken good care of," finished the doctor, soothingly.

"Please--don't let them frighten--my husband--" said the woman herself,
slowly, her distressed eyes moving from one face to another. "If I
could--be moved somewhere before he hears--"

"We won't frighten him," Susanna assured her tenderly. "But will you
tell us your name so we may let him know?"

The injured woman frowned. "I did tell you--didn't I?" she asked
painfully.

"No"--Susanna would use this tone in her nursery some day--"No, dear,
not yet."

"Tell us again," said the doctor, with too obvious an intention to
soothe.

The woman gave him a look full of dignified reproach.

"If I could rest on your porch a little while," she said to Susanna,
ignoring the others rather purposely, "I should be quite myself again.
That will be best. Then I can think--I can't think now. These
people--and my head--"

And she tried to rise, supporting herself with a hand on Susanna's arm.
But with the effort the last vestige of color left her face, and she
slipped, unconscious, back to the grass.

"Dead?" asked Susanna, very white.

"No--no! Only fainted," Dr. Whitney said. "But I don't like it," he
added, his finger at the limp wrist.

"Bring her in, won't you?" Susanna urged with sudden decision. "I
simply can't let her be taken 'way up to town! This way--"

And, relieved to have it settled, she led them swiftly across the
garden and into the house, flung down the snowy covers of the
guest-room bed, and with Emma's sympathetic help established the
stranger therein.

"Trouble," whispered the injured woman apologetically, when she opened
her eyes upon walls and curtains rioting with pink roses, and felt the
delicious softness and freshness of the linen and pillows about h