contortion of pain.

'Don't raise it,' he said peremptorily. 'We will have a doctor here in a
moment, and have it bandaged.'

He disappeared. Rose tried to sit up, seized with a frantic longing to
disobey him, and get off before he returned. Stinging the girl's mind
was the sense that it might, all perfectly well seem to him a planned
appeal to his pity.

'Agnes, help me up,' she said with a little involuntary groan; 'I shall
be better at home.'

But both Lady Helen and Agnes laughed her to scorn, and she lay back
once more, overwhelmed by fatigue and faintness. A few more minutes, and
a doctor appeared, caught by good luck in the next street. He pronounced
it a severe muscular strain, but nothing more; applied a lotion and
improvised a sling. Rose consulted him anxiously, as to the interference
with her playing.

'A week,' he said; 'no more, if you are careful.'

Her pale face brightened. Her art had seemed specially dear to her of
late.

'Hugh!' called Lady Helen, going to the door. 'Now we are ready for the
carriage.'

Rose, leaning on Agnes, walked out into the hall. They found him there
waiting.

'The carriage is here,' he said, bending toward her with a look and tone
which so stirred the fluttered nerves, that the sense of faintness stole
back upon her. 'Let me take you to it.'

'Thank you,' she said, coldly, but by a superhuman effort 'my sister's
help is quite enough.'

He followed them with Lady Helen. At the carriage door the sisters
hesitated a moment. Rose was helpless without a right hand. A little
imperative movement from behind displaced Agnes, and Rose felt herself
hoisted in by a strong arm. She sank into the further corner. The
glow of the dawn caught her white delicate features, the curls on her
temples, all the silken confusion of her dress. Hugh Flaxman put in
Agnes and his sister, said something to Agnes about coming to inquire,
and raised his hat. Rose caught the quick force and intensity of his
eyes, and then closed her own, lost in a languid swoon of pain, memory,
and resentful wonder.

Flaxman walked away down Park Lane through the chill morning quietness,
the gathering light striking over the houses beside him on the misty
stretches of the Park. His hat was over his eyes, his hands thrust into
his pockets; a close observer would have noticed a certain trembling of
the lips. It was but a few seconds since her young warm beauty had been
for an instant in his arms; his whole bein