“But you will do wonders with your left hand.  And your right will perhaps improve.  The doctors mayn’t know,” she pleaded, catching at straws.  “Dear Otto—­don’t despair!”

He flushed and smiled.  His uninjured hand slipped back into hers again.

“I like you to call me Otto.  How dear that was of you!  May I call you Constance?”

She nodded.  There was a sob in her throat that would not let her speak.

“I don’t despair—­now,” he said, after a moment.  “I did at first.  I wanted to put an end to myself.  But, of course, it was Sorell who saved me.  If my mother had lived, she could not have done more.”

He turned away his face so that Constance should not see it.  When he looked at her again, he was quite calm and smiling.

“Do you know who come to see me almost every day?”

“Tell me.”

“Meyrick—­Lord Meyrick, and Robertson.  Perhaps you don’t know him.  He’s a Winchester man, a splendid cricketer.  It was Robertson I was struggling with when I fell.  How could he know I should hurt myself?  It wasn’t his fault and he gave up his ‘choice’ for the Oxford Eleven.  They put him in at the last moment.  But he wouldn’t play.  I didn’t know till afterwards.  I told him he was a great fool.”

There was a pause.  Then Connie said—­with difficulty—­“Did—­did Mr. Falloden write?  Has he said anything?”

“Oh yes, he sent a message.  After all, when you run over a dog, you send a message, don’t you?” said the lad with sudden bitterness.  “And I believe he wrote a letter—­after I came here.  But I didn’t open it.  I gave it to Sorell.”

Then he raised himself on his pillows and looked keenly at Connie.

“You see the others didn’t mean any harm.  They were drunk, and it was a row.  But Falloden wasn’t drunk—­and he did mean—­”

“Oh, not to hurt you so?” cried Connie involuntarily.

“No—­but to humble and trample on me,” said the youth with vehemence, his pale cheeks flaming.  “He knew quite well what he was about.  I felt that when they came into my room.  He is cruel—­he has the temper of the torturer—­in cold blood—­”

A shudder of rage went through him.  His excitable Slav nature brought everything back to him—­as ugly and as real as when it happened.

“Oh, no—­no!” said Constance, putting her hand over her eyes.

Radowitz controlled himself at once.

“I won’t say any more,” he said in a low voice, breathing deep—­“I won’t say any more.”  But a minute afterwards he looked up again, his brow contracting—­“Only, for God’s sake, don’t marry him!”

“Don’t be afraid,” said Constance.  “I shall never marry him!”

He looked at her piteously.  “Only—­if you care for him—­what then?  You are not to be unhappy!—­you are to be the happiest person in the world.  If you did care for him—­I should have to see some good in him—­and that would be awful.  It is not because he did me an injury, you understand.  The other two are my friends—­they will be always my friends.  But there is something in Falloden’s soul that I hate—­that I would like to fight—­till either he drops or I. It is the same sort of feeling I have towards those who have killed my country.”