We didn’t want to talk, or even to think; we just wanted to be alive and glad with everything else.  The very car seemed to feel something of this intoxication, for as it went flying down the road it hummed and purred and sang snatches of the Song of Speed to itself.  We turned a corner, I remember.  And then there was a frightful lurch and jar, and the big car bounded into the air, and turned over in the ditch.  I remember the rear wheels turning with a grinding, spitting noise.

When I woke up, Alicia was sitting by the side of the road, with the doctor’s head in her lap, and I was lying on the grass near by.  Her eyes were big and blank in a bloodless face, and the curling ends of her long bright hair hung in the dust.  There was a cruel red mark on her forehead.  Otherwise she was quite uninjured.  I wasn’t conscious of any pain myself—­not then, at least.

“Sophy,” Alicia said, impersonally, “Doctor Geddes is dead.”  And she fell to stroking his cheek lightly, with one finger; “quite dead.  Without one word to me, Sophy!”

The figure on the ground looked dreadfully still and helpless.  There was something ghastly wrong in seeing so strong a man lie so still and helpless.  And the road, an unfrequented one, was unutterably lonesome.  There was nothing, nobody in sight—­nothing but the buzzard, black against the blue sky, tipping his wings to the wind.

“You must go for help,” I mumbled.

“I dare not leave him.  I know he’s dead, Sophy.  But—­he might open his eyes, just once more.  You see, he didn’t know, before he—­died, that I was very much in love with him—­oh, terribly in love with him, Sophy!—­from the first time I saw him standing in our door.  I thought you cared for him, too, Sophy dear—­and I sent him away from me—­ And now he has gotten himself killed.”  With a gentle touch she pushed back the thick reddish hair from his forehead.  She looked at me imploringly:  “Don’t let him be dead, Sophy!  For God’s sake, Sophy, don’t let him be dead!  Make him open his eyes, Sophy!”

A negro teamster came upon us, recognized the doctor, shrieked, and set off for help, lashing his mules into a mad run.  But Alicia never moved, and I huddled beside her, numb and silent, looking at the white face upon her knees.  With all the impatience wiped out, it was a fine face, at once strong and sweet.

“Richard,” said Alicia, “Richard, if I had been killed, and you begged and prayed me from your breaking heart to listen to you, to understand that you’d cared for me, only me, all along, somehow I’d manage to let you know I understood.  Richard, listen to me!  Open your eyes, Richard.  Please, please, Richard, open your eyes!”

Her voice was so piteous that I fell to weeping.  And, by the mercy of God, Richard opened his eyes and stared with blue blankness straight into Alicia’s quivering, anguished face.

“Richard,” said she, bending down to him, “my dear, dear love, keep your eyes open just a little longer, until I can make you understand.  Oh, Richard, I cared!  Indeed, indeed, I cared!”