of running down to Putney--to see
Sissie." Eve laughed nervously. "I thought I might possibly bring her
home with me.... After the accident Carthew put me into a taxi and I
came back. Of course he had to stay to look after the car. And then you
weren't here when I arrived! Where are you going, dearest?"

"I'm going to telephone for the doctor, of course," said Mr. Prohack
quietly, but very irritably.

"Oh, darling! I've sent for the doctor. He wasn't in, they said, but
they said he'd be back quite soon and then he'd come at once. I don't
really need the doctor. I only sent for him because I knew you'd be so
frightfully angry if I didn't."

Mr. Prohack had returned to the bed. He took his wife's hand.

"Feel my pulse. It's all right, isn't it?"

"I can't feel it at all."

"Oh, Arthur, you never could! I can feel your hand trembling, that's
what I can feel. Now please don't be upset, Arthur."

"I suppose the car's smashed?"

She nodded:

"It's a bit broken."

"Where was it?"

"It was just on the other side of Putney Bridge, on the tramlines
there."

"Carthew wasn't hurt?"

"Oh, no! Carthew was simply splendid."

"How did it happen, exactly?"

"Oh, Arthur, you with your 'exactlys'! Don't ask me. I'm too tired.
Besides, I didn't see it. My eyes were shut" She closed her eyes.

Suddenly she sat up and put her hand on his shoulder, in a sort of
appeal, vaguely smiling. He tried to smile, but could not. Then her hand
dropped. A totally bewildered expression veiled the anxious kindness in
her eyes. The blood left her face until her cheeks were nearly as white
as the embroidered cloth on the night-tabla. Her eyes closed. She fell
back. She had fainted. She was just as if dead. Her hand was as cold as
the hand of a corpse.

Such was Mr. Prohack's vast experience of life that he had not the least
idea what to do in this crisis. But he tremendously regretted that
Angmering, Bishop, and the inventor of the motor-car had ever been born.
He rushed out on to the landing and loudly shouted: "Machin! Machin!
Ring up that d----d doctor again, and if he can't come ring up Dr. Plott
at once."

"Yes, sir. Yes, sir."

He rushed back into the bedroom, discovered Eve's smelling-salts, and
held them to her nose. Already the blood was mounting again.

"Well, she's not dead, anyway!" he said to himself grimly.

He could see the blood gently mounting, mounting. It was a wonderful, a
mysterious and a reassuring sight.