against one of the lad's bones. The knock
seemed to re-echo inside him; he hurried to get away from it.

Morel gradually came to himself. He knew where he was and what had
happened, but he did not want to move. He lay still, with tiny bits of
snow tickling his face. It was pleasant to lie quite, quite still. The
time passed. It was the bits of snow that kept rousing him when he did
not want to be roused. At last his will clicked into action.

"I mustn't lie here," he said; "it's silly."

But still he did not move.

"I said I was going to get up," he repeated. "Why don't I?"

And still it was some time before he had sufficiently pulled himself
together to stir; then gradually he got up. Pain made him sick and
dazed, but his brain was clear. Reeling, he groped for his coats and got
them on, buttoning his overcoat up to his ears. It was some time before
he found his cap. He did not know whether his face was still bleeding.
Walking blindly, every step making him sick with pain, he went back to
the pond and washed his face and hands. The icy water hurt, but helped
to bring him back to himself. He crawled back up the hill to the tram.
He wanted to get to his mother--he must get to his mother--that was his
blind intention. He covered his face as much as he could, and struggled
sickly along. Continually the ground seemed to fall away from him as
he walked, and he felt himself dropping with a sickening feeling into
space; so, like a nightmare, he got through with the journey home.

Everybody was in bed. He looked at himself. His face was discoloured
and smeared with blood, almost like a dead man's face. He washed it, and
went to bed. The night went by in delirium. In the morning he found his
mother looking at him. Her blue eyes--they were all he wanted to see.
She was there; he was in her hands.

"It's not much, mother," he said. "It was Baxter Dawes."

"Tell me where it hurts you," she said quietly.

"I don't know--my shoulder. Say it was a bicycle accident, mother."

He could not move his arm. Presently Minnie, the little servant, came
upstairs with some tea.

"Your mother's nearly frightened me out of my wits--fainted away," she
said.

He felt he could not bear it. His mother nursed him; he told her about
it.

"And now I should have done with them all," she said quietly.

"I will, mother."

She covered him up.

"And don't think about it," she said--"only try to go to sleep. The
doctor won't be here till e