ss and tore it wide open.

He was lying on his face amid a heap of rolled rugs, clothes hangers and
furs, quite motionless.

She knew enough to run into the servants' rooms, fling open the windows
and, with all the strength in her young body, drag the inanimate youth
across the floor and into the fresh air.

"O-h!" she said, and said it only once. Then, ashy of lip and cheek, she
took hold of Brown and, lashing her memory to help her in the emergency,
performed for that inanimate gentleman the rudiments of an exercise
which, if done properly, is supposed to induce artificial respiration.

It certainly induced something resembling it in Brown. After a while he
made unlovely and inarticulate sounds; after a while the sounds became
articulate. He said: "Betty!" several times, more or less distinctly. He
opened one eye, then the other; then his hands closed on the hands that
were holding his wrists; he looked up at her from where he lay on the
floor. She, crouched beside him, eyes still dilated with the awful fear
of death, looked back, breathless, trembling.

"That is a devil of a place, that closet," he said faintly.

She tried to smile, tried wearily to free her hands, watched them, dazed,
being drawn toward him, drawn tight against his lips--felt his lips on
them.

Then, without warning, an incredible thrill shot through her to the
heart, stilling it--silencing pulse and breath--nay, thought itself. She
heard him speaking; his words came to her like distant sounds in a dream:

"I cared for you. You give me life--and I adore you.... Let me. It will
not harm you. The problem of life is solved for me; I have solved it; but
unless some day you will prove it for me--Betty--the problem of life is
but a sorry sum--a total of ciphers without end.... No other two people
in all the world could be what we are and what we have been to each
other. No other two people could dare to face what we dare face." He
paused: "Dare we, Betty?"

Her eyes turned from his. He rose unsteadily, supported on one arm; she
sprang to her feet, looked at him, and, as he made an awkward effort to
rise, suddenly bent forward and gave him both hands in aid.

"Wait--wait!" she said; "let me try to think, if I can. Don't speak to me
again--not yet--not now."

But, at intervals, as they descended the flights of stairs, she turned
instinctively to watch his progress, for he still moved with difficulty.

In the drawing-room they halted, he leaning