close by on a
chair. A travelling-cloak and a passport-case lay on the table.

Seeing, yet scarcely noting all this, I flung myself on my knees beside
her, and found that one hand and arm lay imprisoned under the bookcase.
She was not insensible, but pain had deprived her of the power of
speech. I raised her head tenderly, and supported it against a chair;
then lifted the heavy bookcase, and, one by one, removed the volumes
that had fallen upon her.

Alas! the white little hand all crushed and bleeding--the powerless
arm--the brave mouth striving to be firm!

I took the poor maimed arm, made a temporary sling for it with my
cravat, and, taking her up in my arms as if she had been an infant,
carried her to the sofa. Then I closed the window; ran back to my own
room for hot water; tore up some old handkerchiefs for bandages; and so
dressed and bound her wounds--blessing (for the first time in my life)
the destiny that had made me a surgeon.

"Are you in much pain?" I asked, when all was done.

"Not now--but I feel very faint,"

I remembered my coffee in the next room, and brought it to her. I lifted
her head, and supported her with my arm while she drank it.

"You are much better now," I said, when she had again lain down. "Tell
me how it happened."

She smiled languidly.

"It was not my fault," she said, "but Froissart's. Do you remember that
Froissart?"

Remember it! I should think so.

"Froissart!" I exclaimed. "Why, what had he to do with it?"

"Only this. I usually kept him on the top of the bookcase that fell down
this evening. Just now, while preparing for a journey upon which I must
start to-morrow morning, I thought to remove the book to a safer place;
and so, instead of standing on a chair, I tried to reach up, and,
reaching up, disturbed the balance of the bookcase, and brought
it down."

"Could you not have got out of the way when you saw it falling?"

"Yes--but I tried to prevent it, and so was knocked down and imprisoned
as you found me."

"Merciful Heaven! it might have killed you."

"That was what flashed across my mind when I saw it coming," she
replied, with a faint smile.

"You spoke of a journey," I said presently, turning my face away lest
she should read its story too plainly; "but now, of course, you must not
move for a few days."

"I must travel to-morrow," she said, with quiet decision.

"Impossible!"

"I have no alternative."

"But think of the danger--the imprudence-