usly.

Carrie, who was sitting beside Dudley, and opposite to Max, hesitated a
little before answering:

"What else could we do? We couldn't leave him there at the wharf, could
we? And where else could we have taken him? Not back to his chambers,
certainly!"

There was silence. The carriage jogged on in the darkness through
London's ugly outskirts, and the two watchers listened solicitously to
the heavy breathing of their patient. It was a comfort to Max, a great
one indeed, to have Carrie for a companion on this doleful journey. But
she was not the same girl, now that she had duties to attend to, that
she had been over that _tete-a-tete_ dinner, or even during the
journey in the hansom. He himself felt that he now counted for nothing
with her, that he was merely the individual who happened to occupy the
opposite seat; that her interest, her attentions, were absorbed by the
unconscious man by her side.

"Why didn't you become a hospital nurse?" asked Max, suddenly.

He heard rather than saw that she started.

"That's just what I thought of doing," she answered, after a little
pause. "I'm just old enough to enter one of the Children's Hospitals as
a probationer. They take them at twenty."

"I see. Then you couldn't have tried before."

"No; they're very strict about age."

"I should think you were cut out for the work, if only you are strong
enough," said Max, with warmth. "You seem to do just the right thing in
just the right way."

"I've had plenty of experience," said Carrie, shortly, breaking in upon
rhapsodies which threatened to become tender. "I did a lot of visiting
among poor people who had no one to nurse them when I lived with Miss
Aldridge. Down in these parts, the East End, you get practice enough
like that, I can tell you!"

"But the treatment of a drowning man--that requires special knowledge,
surely!"

"Yes, but down by the river is just the place to get it. He's the fifth
person I've seen taken out for dead in the time I've lived there. Three
out of the five were dead. The other two, a boy and a woman, were
brought around."

There was silence again.

Presently Max whispered:

"Do you know--can you guess--how he got into the water?"

Carrie shivered.

"Wait--wait till he can tell us himself," said she, hurriedly. "It's no
use guessing. Perhaps it was an accident, you know."

"You don't think so?"

"Sh--sh!" said Carrie.

But Max persisted.

"You know as well as I do that that