e other members of O'Hara's party had crawled down the bank by that
time. With the aid of a jack, they got the car up. Johnny Rosenfeld lay
doubled on his face underneath. When he came to and opened his eyes,
Grace almost shrieked with relief.

"I'm all right," said Johnny Rosenfeld. And, when they offered him
whiskey: "Away with the fire-water. I am no drinker. I--I--" A spasm of
pain twisted his face. "I guess I'll get up." With his arms he lifted
himself to a sitting position, and fell back again.

"God!" he said. "I can't move my legs."

CHAPTER XVII

By Christmas Day Sidney was back in the hospital, a little wan, but
valiantly determined to keep her life to its mark of service. She had a
talk with K. the night before she left.

Katie was out, and Sidney had put the dining-room in order. K. sat by
the table and watched her as she moved about the room.

The past few weeks had been very wonderful to him: to help her up and
down the stairs, to read to her in the evenings as she lay on the couch
in the sewing-room; later, as she improved, to bring small dainties home
for her tray, and, having stood over Katie while she cooked them, to
bear them in triumph to that upper room--he had not been so happy in
years.

And now it was over. He drew a long breath.

"I hope you don't feel as if you must stay on," she said anxiously. "Not
that we don't want you--you know better than that."

"There is no place else in the whole world that I want to go to," he
said simply.

"I seem to be always relying on somebody's kindness to--to keep things
together. First, for years and years, it was Aunt Harriet; now it is
you."

"Don't you realize that, instead of your being grateful to me, it is
I who am undeniably grateful to you? This is home now. I have lived
around--in different places and in different ways. I would rather be
here than anywhere else in the world."

But he did not look at her. There was so much that was hopeless in his
eyes that he did not want her to see. She would be quite capable, he
told himself savagely, of marrying him out of sheer pity if she ever
guessed. And he was afraid--afraid, since he wanted her so much--that he
would be fool and weakling enough to take her even on those terms. So he
looked away.

Everything was ready for her return to the hospital. She had been out
that day to put flowers on the quiet grave where Anna lay with folded
hands; she had made her round of little visits on th