idn't the concierge tell you?"

"He told us she was not here, at this hotel, at present. He said she
had gone away with some friends. But we took it for granted she was in
Paris. I told them I would stay until she came. I--"

I interrupted.

"Stay until she comes!" I repeated. "Stay--! Why you can't do that! You
can't! You must not!"

"Hush! hush! Remember you are ill. Think of yourself!"

"Of myself! I am thinking of you. You mustn't stay here--with me. What
will they think? What--"

"Hush! hush, please. Think! It makes no difference what they think. If I
had cared what people thought I should not be singing at--Hush! you must
not excite yourself in this way."

But I refused to hush.

"You must not!" I cried. "You shall not! Why did you do it? They could
have found a nurse, if one was needed. Bayliss--"

"Doctor Bayliss does not know. If he did I should not care. As for the
others--" she colored, slightly,

"Well, I told the concierge that you were my uncle. It was only a white
lie; you used to say you were, you know."

"Say! Oh, Frances, for your own sake, please--"

"Hush! Do you suppose," her cheeks reddened and her eyes flashed as I
had seen them flash before, "do you suppose I would go away and leave
you now? Now, when you are hurt and ill and--and--after all that you
have done! After I treated you as I did! Oh, let me do something! Let me
do a little, the veriest little in return. I--Oh, stop! stop! What are
you doing?"

I suppose I was trying to sit up; I remember raising myself on my elbow.
Then came the pain again, the throbbing in my head and the agonizing
pain in my side. And after that there is another long interval in my
recollections.

For a week--of course I did not know it was a week then--my memories
consist only of a series of flashes like the memory of the hours
immediately following the accident. I remember people talking, but not
what they said; I remember her voice, or I think I do, and the touch
of her hand on my forehead. And afterward, other voices, Hephzy's in
particular. But when I came to myself, weak and shaky, but to remain
myself for good and all, Hephzy--the real Hephzy--was in the room with
me.

Even then they would not let me ask questions. Another day dragged by
before I was permitted to do that. Then Hephzy told me I had a cracked
rib and a variety of assorted bruises, that I had suffered slight
concussion of the brain, and that my immediate job was to behave myse