rrive.

I am sorry to confess it, but I am a coward where physical pain is
concerned. I am not one of those women who can bear the torturing
pangs of any illness or accident without an outcry. And, struggle as I
might, I could not repress the moan which rose to my lips.

"I know, child." Lillian's tender hands held my writhing ones, her
pitying eyes looked into mine; but she turned from me the next moment
in amazement, for Robert Gordon, the mysterious man who had loved my
mother, appeared, as if from nowhere, at her side, twisting his hands
together and muttering words which I could not believe to be real,
so strange and disjointed were they. I felt that they must be only
fantasies of my confused brain.

"Mr. Gordon, this will never do," Lillian said sternly. "I thought I
had sent every one out of the room except Mrs. Durkee."

"I know--I am going right away again. But I had to come this time. Is
she going to die?"

"Not if I can get a chance to attend to her without everybody
bothering me. I am very sure she is not seriously injured. Now, you
must go away."

Mr. Gordon fled at once. And Lillian, and Mrs. Durkee worked so
swiftly and skillfully that when the physician, a kindly, elderly
practitioner from Crest Haven arrived, my pain had been assuaged.

By his direction I was carried to my own room. I must have fainted
before they moved me, for the next thing I remember was the sound of
the doctor's voice.

"There is nothing to be alarmed over," the physician was saying to a
shadowy some one at the head of my bed, a some one who was breathing
heavily, and the trembling of whose body I could feel against the bed.
"Of course, the shock has been severe, and the pain of moving her was
too much for her. But she is coming round nicely. You may speak to her
now."

The shadowy some one moved forward a little, resolved itself to my
clearing sight as my husband. He knelt beside the bed and put his lips
to my uninjured hand.

"Sweetheart! Sweetheart!" he murmured, "my own girl! Is the pain very
bad?"

"Not now," I answered faintly, trying to smile, but only succeeding
in twisting my mouth into a grimace of pain. The flames had mercifully
spared my hair and most of my face, but there was one burn upon
one side of my throat, extending up into my cheek, which made it
uncomfortable for me to move the muscles of my face.

"Don't try to talk," Dicky replied. "Just lie still and let us take
care of you. Lil will stay, I