d her was: "Nothing to worry
over. You'll be as good as new in a few days. As a miracle, it's _some_
miracle!"

Having completed the cleansing of the cut, he fetched his knapsack and
produced a clean handkerchief, which he folded and laid over the wound.
This pad he secured in place by a long bandage cut from the edge of the
shawl and tied securely round her shapely head.

"There," said he, surveying his improvisation with considerable
satisfaction. "Now you'll do, till we can undertake the next thing.
Sorry I haven't any brandy to give you, or anything of that sort. The
fact is, I don't use it, and have none with me. How do you feel, now?"

She opened her eyes and looked up at him with the ghost of a smile on
her pale lips.

"Oh, much, much better, thank you!" she answered. "I don't need any
brandy. I'm--awfully strong, really. In a little while I'll be all
right. Just give me a little more water, and--and tell me--who are you?"

"Who am I?" he queried, holding up her head while she drank from the tin
cup he had now taken from his knapsack. "I? Oh, just an out-of-work.
Nobody of any interest to you!"

A certain tinge of bitterness crept into his voice. In health, he knew,
a woman of this class would not suffer him even to touch her hand.

"_Don't_ ask me who I am, please. And I--I won't ask _your_ name. We're
of different worlds, I guess. But for the moment, Fate has levelled the
barriers. Just let it go at that. And now, if you can stay here, all
right; perhaps I can hike back to the next house, below here, and
telephone, and summon help."

"How far is it?" she asked, looking at him with wonder in her lovely
eyes--wonder, and new thoughts, and a strange kind of longing to know
more of this extraordinary man, so strong, so gentle, so unwilling to
divulge himself or ask her name.

"How far?" he repeated. "Oh, four or five miles. I can make it in no
time. And with luck, I can have an auto and a doctor here before dark.
Well, does that suit you?"

"Don't go, please," she answered. "I--I may be still a little weak and
foolish, but--somehow, I don't want to be left alone. I want to be kept
from remembering, from thinking of those last, awful moments when the
car was running away; when it struck the wall, at the turn; when I was
thrown out, and--and knew no more. Don't go just yet," the girl
entreated, covering her eyes with both hands, as though to shut out the
horrible vision of the catastrophe.

"All right,"