of strong, hot colour, vibrating and
lightly intermingled. It was very gorgeous, for a communion table.
But the day of white lilies was over.

Suddenly there was a terrific crash and bang and tumble, up in the
organ-loft, followed by a cursing.

"Are you hurt?" called Alvina, looking up into space. The candle had
disappeared.

But there was no reply. Feeling curious, she went out of the Chapel
to the stairs in the side porch, and ran up to the organ. She went
round the side--and there she saw a man in his shirt-sleeves sitting
crouched in the obscurity on the floor between the organ and the
wall of the back, while a collapsed pair of steps lay between her
and him. It was too dark to see who it was.

"That rotten pair of steps came down with me," said the infuriated
voice of Arthur Witham, "and about broke my leg."

Alvina advanced towards him, picking her way over the steps. He was
sitting nursing his leg.

"Is it bad?" she asked, stooping towards him.

In the shadow he lifted up his face. It was pale, and his eyes were
savage with anger. Her face was near his.

"It is bad," he said furious because of the shock. The shock had
thrown him off his balance.

"Let me see," she said.

He removed his hands from clasping his shin, some distance above the
ankle. She put her fingers over the bone, over his stocking, to feel
if there was any fracture. Immediately her fingers were wet with
blood. Then he did a curious thing. With both his hands he pressed
her hand down over his wounded leg, pressed it with all his might,
as if her hand were a plaster. For some moments he sat pressing her
hand over his broken shin, completely oblivious, as some people are
when they have had a shock and a hurt, intense on one point of
consciousness only, and for the rest unconscious.

Then he began to come to himself. The pain modified itself. He could
not bear the sudden acute hurt to his shin. That was one of his
sensitive, unbearable parts.

"The bone isn't broken," she said professionally. "But you'd better
get the stocking out of it."

Without a thought, he pulled his trouser-leg higher and rolled down
his stocking, extremely gingerly, and sick with pain.

"Can you show a light?" he said.

She found the candle. And she knew where matches always rested, on a
little ledge of the organ. So she brought him a light, whilst he
examined his broken shin. The blood was flowing, but not so much. It
was a nasty cut bruise, swelling and