of the thing penetrated my dazed brain. When I got up
I seemed to walk, to crawl, with leaden weights holding back my feet.

When I got to the corner I had to catch the post for support. I knew
somebody was saying, "Oh, how terrible!" over and over. It was only
afterward that I knew it had been myself. And then some other voice was
saying, "Don't be alarmed. Please don't be frightened. I'm all right."

I dared to look over the parapet, finally, and instead of a crushed and
unspeakable body, there was Mr. Harbison, sitting about eight feet below
me, with his feet swinging into space and a long red scratch from the
corner of his eye across his cheek. There was a sort of mansard there,
with windows, and just enough coping to keep him from rolling off.

"I thought you had fallen--all the way," I gasped, trying to keep my
lips from trembling. "I--oh, don't dangle your feet like that!"

He did not seem at all glad of his escape. He sat there gloomily,
peering into the gulf beneath.

"If it wasn't so--er--messy and generally unpleasant," he replied
without looking up, "I would slide off and go the rest of the way."

"You are childish," I said severely. "See if you can get through the
window behind you. If you can not, I'll come down and unfasten it." But
the window was open, and I had a chance to sit down and gather up the
scattered ends of my nerves. To my surprise, however, when he came back
he made no effort to renew our conversation. He ignored me completely,
and went to work at once to repair the damage to his wires, with his
back to me.

"I think you are very rude," I said at last. "You fell over there and I
thought you were killed. The nervous shock I experienced is just as bad
as if you had gone--all the way."

He put down the hammer and came over to me without speaking. Then, when
he was quite close, he said:

"I am very sorry if I startled you. I did not flatter myself that you
would be profoundly affected, in any event."

"Oh, as to that," I said lightly, "it makes me ill for days if my car
runs over a dog." He looked at me in silence. "You are not going to get
up on that parapet again?"

"Mrs. Wilson," he said, without paying the slightest attention to my
question, "will you tell me what I have done?"

"Done?"

"Or have not done? I have racked my brains--stayed awake all of last
night. At first I hoped it was impersonal, that, womanlike you were
merely venting general disfavor on one particular indi