hen, too, she refused to allow any flowers
in the room, although Betty had got a florist out of bed to order some.

The consultant came, stayed an hour, and left. Aunt Selina, who proved
herself a trump in that trying time, waylaid him in the hall, and
he said it might be a fractured skull, although it was possibly only
concussion.

The men spent most of the morning together in the den, with the door
shut. Now and then one of them would tiptoe upstairs, ask the nurse how
her patient was doing, and creak down again. Just before noon they all
went to the roof and examined again the place where he had been found.
I know, for I was in the upper hall outside the studio. I stayed there
almost all day, and after a while the nurse let me bring her things as
she needed them. I don't know why mother didn't let me study nursing--I
always wanted to do it. And I felt helpless and childish now, when there
were things to be done.

Max came down from the roof alone, and I cornered him in the upper hall.

"I'm going crazy, Max," I said. "Nobody will tell me anything, and I
can't stand it. How was he hurt? Who hurt him?"

Max looked at me quite a long time.

"I'm darned if I understand you, Kit," he said gravely. "You said you
disliked Harbison."

"So I do--I did," I supplemented. "But whether I like him or not has
nothing to do with it. He has been injured--perhaps murdered"--I choked
a little. "Which--which of you did it?"

Max took my hand and held it, looking down at me.

"I wish you could have cared for me like that," he said gently. "Dear
little girl, we don't know who hurt him. I didn't, if that's what you
mean. Perhaps a flower pot--"

I began to cry then, and he drew me to him and let me cry on his arm. He
stood very quietly, patting my head in a brotherly way and behaving very
well, save that once he said:

"Don't cry too long, Kit; I can stand only a certain amount."

And just then the nurse opened the door to the studio, and with Max's
arm still around me, I raised my head and looked in.

Mr. Harbison was conscious. His eyes were open, and he was staring at us
both as we stood framed by the doorway.

He lay back at once and closed his eyes, and the nurse shut the door.
There was no use, even if I had been allowed in, in trying to explain
to him. To attempt such a thing would have been to presume that he was
interested in an explanation. I thought bitterly to myself as I brought
the nurse cracked ice and strug