a few hours before in that very
room. At that moment she would have given her life to have been able
to call them dreams. Her lover's life had been attempted by the
inhuman process of reopening his wound.

Should she ever forget the dreadful scene? Never! Not once, but time
and again her brain pictured each detail with a distinctness that was
in the nature of physical pain. From the moment she awoke, which had
been unaccountable to her, to find herself still propped against the
foot-rail of her bed, to the finish of the dastardly scene in the
sick-room was a living nightmare. She remembered the start with which
she had opened her eyes. As far as she knew she had heard nothing;
nothing had disturbed her. And yet she found herself sitting bolt
upright, awake, listening, intent. Then her rush to the lamp. Her
guilty feelings. The unconscious stealth of her tiptoeing to the
landing outside. Her horror at the discovery that her obstruction to
the staircase had been removed, and the chairs, as though to mock the
puerility of her scheming, set in orderly fashion, side by side
against the wall to make way for the midnight intruder. The closed
door of the sick-room, which yielded to her touch and revealed the
apparition of her father bending over her lover, and, with no
uncertainty of movement, removing the bandage from the wounded neck.
The terror of it all remained. So long as she lived she could never
forget one single detail of it.

Even now, though hours had passed since these things had happened, the
nervousness with which she had finally approached the task of
readjusting the bandage still possessed her. And even the thankfulness
with which she discovered that the intended injury had been frustrated
was inadequate to bring her more than a passing satisfaction. She
shuddered, and nervously turned to her patient.

Then it was that she became aware of his return to life.

"Jack! Oh, thank God!" she murmured softly.

And the sound of the well-loved voice roused the patient's interest in
the things about him.

"Where am I?" he asked, in a weak whisper, turning his eyes to the
face so anxiously regarding him.

But Diane's troubles had been lifted from her shoulders for the moment
and the nurse was uppermost once more. She signed to him to keep quiet
while she administered the doses Doc. Osler had prepared for him. Then
she answered his question.

"You are in the room adjoining mine," she said quietly.

Her woman's