not even young, and yet
he cares for me."

The bell had rung; both had heard the far-off sound of it, but no one
answered, maid or man-servant.

She rang again. "I had no time, the words would not come, I tried to
tell him," she said pleadingly to Alexina, as if the girl were
arraigning her, then suddenly dropped into the chair by the bell-cord,
and with her face in her hands against its back went into violent
weeping.

Alexina stood hesitant. There are times for silence. She would go and
find Katy.

But she met her hurrying from the kitchen towards the parlour, the
shawl over her head full of sleet and wet. She was panting and her
eyes were large. Alexina was vaguely conscious of the cook, breathing
excitement, somewhere back in the length of the hall, and behind her
some trades-boy, his basket on his arm, his mouth gaping.

"It's Major Rathbone," said Katy, panting; "John ran into him coming
out the carriage gate. The horses slipped and he had his umbrella down
and didn't see. I was coming from the grocery."

"Oh," said Alexina; "Katy, oh--"

Harriet had heard and was already in the hall and struggling with the
outer door. "I can't--it won't--oh, Alexina, help me!"

Katy had reached the door too, and put her hand on the knob. "They've
already started to the infirmary with him, Miss Harriet, John and that
young doctor across the street, before I came in. He told them to take
him there himself. He was half up, holding to the fence, before John
was off the box. 'Stop the doctor there getting in his buggy,' he
said to John, 'and get me around to the infirmary.'"

"And the doctor--what did he say?" demanded Alexina.

"He said 'Good Lord, man!' and he swore just awful at John being so
slow helping get him in the carriage."

Harriet all at once was herself, perfectly controlled.

"Go get me my long cloak, please, Katy," she said.

"Oh, Miss Harriet," from Katy; "you ain't thinking of goin' out--it's
sleetin' awful--without the carriage!"

But Harriet already had reached the stairs going for the wrap herself.

Alexina followed her. "What is it, Aunt Harriet?" she begged. "Where
are you going?"

Harriet answered back from her own doorway. "To the infirmary."

Action is the one thing always understood by youth. Alexina entirely
approved. "I'll go, too," she said, and ran into her room to change
her wrap for a darker one.

There was but one infirmary at the time in the city, and that a
Catholic institutio