“I know, child.”  Lillian’s tender hands held my writhing ones, her pitying eyes looked into mine; but she turned from me the next moment in amazement, for Robert Gordon, the mysterious man who had loved my mother, appeared, as if from nowhere, at her side, twisting his hands together and muttering words which I could not believe to be real, so strange and disjointed were they.  I felt that they must be only fantasies of my confused brain.

“Mr. Gordon, this will never do,” Lillian said sternly.  “I thought I had sent every one out of the room except Mrs. Durkee.”

“I know—­I am going right away again.  But I had to come this time.  Is she going to die?”

“Not if I can get a chance to attend to her without everybody bothering me.  I am very sure she is not seriously injured.  Now, you must go away.”

Mr. Gordon fled at once.  And Lillian, and Mrs. Durkee worked so swiftly and skillfully that when the physician, a kindly, elderly practitioner from Crest Haven arrived, my pain had been assuaged.

By his direction I was carried to my own room.  I must have fainted before they moved me, for the next thing I remember was the sound of the doctor’s voice.

“There is nothing to be alarmed over,” the physician was saying to a shadowy some one at the head of my bed, a some one who was breathing heavily, and the trembling of whose body I could feel against the bed.  “Of course, the shock has been severe, and the pain of moving her was too much for her.  But she is coming round nicely.  You may speak to her now.”

The shadowy some one moved forward a little, resolved itself to my clearing sight as my husband.  He knelt beside the bed and put his lips to my uninjured hand.

“Sweetheart!  Sweetheart!” he murmured, “my own girl!  Is the pain very bad?”

“Not now,” I answered faintly, trying to smile, but only succeeding in twisting my mouth into a grimace of pain.  The flames had mercifully spared my hair and most of my face, but there was one burn upon one side of my throat, extending up into my cheek, which made it uncomfortable for me to move the muscles of my face.

“Don’t try to talk,” Dicky replied.  “Just lie still and let us take care of you.  Lil will stay, I know, until we can get a nurse here, won’t you, Lil?”

As a frightened child might do, I turned my eyes to Lillian, beseechingly.

“No—­nurse—­just—­Lillian,” I faltered.

Lillian stooped over me reassuringly.

“No one shall touch you but me,” she said decisively, and then turning to the physician, said demurely: 

“Do you think I can be trusted with the case, doctor?”

“Most assuredly,” the physician returned heartily.  “Indeed, if you can stay it is most fortunate for Mrs. Graham.  Good trained nurses are at a premium just now, and great care will be necessary in this case to prevent disfigurement!”

A quick, stifled exclamation of dismay came from Dicky.