and her head laid
upon Mrs. Newton's lap.

Nan pressed close to the wheels.

"Can't I go with her?" she whispered.

Her companion gazed at her blankly for a moment. Then she seemed to
realize the question, and answered it.

"No," she replied. "Get my machine, and--and hers, and see that some
one carries them back for us--some man will do it."

Then without another word she turned her head away, and slowly, slowly
the carriage moved and began its snail's-pace journey townward.

Nan looked helplessly about her.

"Won't some one take the bicycles home?" she pleaded.

She never knew who performed the office. She never cared. She gave
some stranger her address without the slightest interest as to whether
he was trustworthy or no, and then, mounting her own machine, she sped
home as fast as the wheels would turn.

Thus it was that when the dreary little cavalcade reached home at last
everything was in readiness for its reception.

There was no difficulty nor delay in getting upstairs, and in an
incredibly short time the place had assumed the air of hushed solemnity
that always seems to overhang the spot where illness is.

Nan crouched outside the threshold of the sick-room and listened to the
low sounds within with a feeling of overwhelming guilt at her heart.
She dared not go in.

At last the door was opened, and the physician stepped forward. He saw
Nan cowering in the gloom.

"What is this?" he asked kindly.

Nan dragged herself up painfully, as though her limbs had been made of
lead.

"Have I--have I--killed her?" she managed to gasp.

The doctor bent on her a pitying look.

"Killed her?" he repeated. "I do not know what you mean. Do you mean
will she die? No, my child, not if we can help it--and God grant we
may. But it may be long, very long, before she is well. She has been
badly hurt, poor little soul!"

Then followed a term of harrowing suspense. Nights when Nan thought
the sun had forgotten how to rise--so long they seemed and never ending.

The fever that followed the first season of lethargy raged fierce and
hot for many a day, and the delirium that accompanied it was difficult
to quell. It seemed at times as though it must burn the patient's very
life away. It was during these days that Nan learned how much she had
caused her friend to suffer. What, in her moments of consciousness,
she had never permitted to pass her lips, now in these hours of
delirium she dwelt on and rep