He brought out the last words fearfully.  Little drops of moisture stood on his forehead.  I saw that the shock of the girl’s terrible act had unnerved him.

Nerving myself to be as practical and matter-of-fact as possible, I wiped the moisture from his brow with my handkerchief and patted his cheek soothingly.

“I will attend to everything,” I promised, “just as if you were able to see to it.  But you must do something for me in return; you must promise not to talk any more and try and go to sleep.”

“My own precious girl,” he sighed, happily, and then drowsily—­

“Kiss me!”

I pressed my lips to his.  His eyes closed, and with his hand clinging tightly to mine, he slept.

How long I knelt there I do not know.  No one came near the room, but through the closed door I could hear the hushed hurry and movement which marks a desperate fight between life and death.

I felt numbed, bewildered.  I tried to visualize what was happening outside the room, but I could not.  I felt as if Dicky and I had come through some terrible shipwreck together and had been cast up on this friendly piece of shore.

I knew that later I would have to face my own soul in a rigid inquisition as to how far I had been to blame for this tragedy.  I had been married less than a year, and yet my husband was involved in a horrible complication like this.

But my brain was too exhausted to follow that line of thought.  I was content to rest quietly on my knees by the side of Dicky’s bed, with his hand in mine and my eyes fixed on his white face with the long lashes shadowing it.

At first I was perfectly comfortable, then after a while little tingling pains began to run through my back and limbs.

I dared not change my position for fear of disturbing Dicky, so I set my teeth and endured the discomfort.  The sharpness of the pain gradually wore away as the minutes went by, and was succeeded by a distressing feeling of numbness extending all over my body.

Just as I was beginning to feel that the numbness must soon extend to my brain, the door opened and some one came quietly in.

My back was to the door, and so careful were the footsteps crossing the room that I could not tell who the newcomer was until I felt a firm hand gently unclasping my nervous fingers from Dicky’s.  Then I looked up into the solicitous face of Dr. Pettit.

“How is it that you have been left alone here so long?” he inquired indignantly, yet keeping his voice to the professional low pitch of a sick room.  He put his strong, firm hands under my elbows, raised me to my feet and supported me to a chair, for my feet were like pieces of wood.  I could hardly lift them.

“How long have you been kneeling there?” he demanded.  “You would have fainted away if you had stayed there much longer.”

“I do not know,” I replied faintly, “but it doesn’t matter.  Tell me, is my husband all right, and how badly is he hurt?”