e effect on the work-women was electrical: they swarmed
on the broken masonry, and began to clear it away brick by brick. They
worked with sympathetic fury, led by this fair creature, whose white
hands were soon soiled and bloody, but never tired. In less than an hour
they had cleared away several wagon-loads of debris.

The body of Henry Little was not there.

Grace gave her purse to the women, and leaned heavily on Mr. Ransome's
arm again. He supported her out of the works.

As soon as they were alone, she said, "Is Jael Dence alive or dead?"

"She was alive half an hour ago."

"Where is she?"

"At the hospital."

"Take me to the hospital."

He took her to the hospital, and soon they stood beside a clean little
bed, in which lay the white but still comely face of Jael Dence:
her luxuriant hair was cut close, and her head bandaged; but for her
majestic form, she looked a fair, dying boy.

"Stand back," said Grace, "and let me speak to her." Then she leaned
over Jael, where she lay.

Gentle women are not all gentleness. Watch them, especially in contact
with their own sex, and you shall see now and then a trait of the wild
animal. Grace Carden at this moment was any thing but dove-like; it was
more like a falcon the way she clutched the bedclothes, and towered over
that prostrate figure, and then, descending slowly nearer and nearer,
plunged her eyes into those fixed and staring orbs of Jael Dence.

So she remained riveted. Had Jael been conscious, and culpable, nothing
could have escaped a scrutiny so penetrating.

Even unconscious as she was, Jael's brain and body began to show some
signs they were not quite impervious to the strange magnetic power which
besieged them so closely. When Grace's eyes had been close to hers about
a minute, Jael Dence moved her head slightly to the left, as if those
eyes scorched her.

But Grace moved her own head to the right, rapid as a snake, and fixed
her again directly.

Jael Dence's bosom gave a heave.

"Where--is--Henry Little?" said Grace, still holding her tight by the
eye, and speaking very slowly, and in such a tone, low, but solemn and
commanding; a tone that compelled reply.

"Where--is--Henry Little?"

When this was so repeated, Jael moved a little, and her lips began to
quiver.

"Where--is--Henry Little?"

Jael's lips opened feebly, and some inarticulate sounds issued from
them.

"Where--is--Henry Little?"

Jael Dence, though unconscious, writhed