across
the street.

"I see it! There he is!" Mr. Neal had said in a voice exultant with joy,
and then he had dodged into the traffic, reckless of life and limb.

The chief clerk was greatly distressed. He could not work. He would sit
with his lank form huddled up in his office chair, gazing fixedly over
his eyeglasses at nothing in particular. About two o'clock he bethought
himself to look up the family with which Mr. Neal lodged in the
telephone directory and to inform them of the accident. The whole office
force listened to the conversation over the telephone, and heard the
chief's voice break as he told of the seriousness of the injury. Then
the chief clerk shut his books sharply, clapped on his street coat and
rusty straw hat, and set out for the hospital.

Long before the chief clerk arrived at the hospital, a white-coated
doctor, standing momentarily in a doorway of the ward in which Mr. James
Neal lay, met a nurse coming out. The doctor's face was such a one as
would have delighted Mr. Neal if he had been able to see it. It was a
benevolent face. A profound knowledge of the problems of humanity had
marked it with depth of understanding, and withal, a kindliness and
sympathy, that made it worthy a second and a third glance in any
company, however distinguished.

"How about the skull fracture?" asked the doctor in a low voice, as the
nurse was passing out.

"He is dead," said the nurse.

"When?" asked the doctor.

"Just now. I just left him."

"There was no chance," said the doctor.

The nurse was about to pass on when the doctor detained her.

"That tall man," he said, "who was with him: where has he gone?"

The nurse looked at the doctor in surprise.

"There was no one with him but me," she said.

"Oh, yes," said the doctor. "I saw a man bending over the bed--a very
tall man with a remarkable face. I wondered who he could be."

The nurse turned, and with the doctor looked over toward the bed where
the body of James Neal lay.

"That is strange," said the nurse.

"I saw him there," said the doctor, "just as you were leaving the
patient; now he is gone."

"Queer! I saw no one," said the nurse, and moved away to attend to other
duties.

The doctor walked over to the bed where the body of the little clerk
lay.

"It _is_ strange," he mused. "I surely saw him.--The most beautiful face
I ever saw."

Then he looked down at what had been James Neal.

"He was very fortunate," said the doctor in