The blue stare never wavered.  It gathered intensity.

“Don’t, don’t look at me like that, Richard!” cried Alicia, beginning to sob wildly.  “Don’t—­don’t look so—­so angelic, dear.  Look like your own self at me, Richard!  Oh, darling, for our dear God’s mercy’s sake, please, please try to look bad-tempered just once more!”

His pale lips twitched curiously.  He sighed.  Then he murmured something that sounded like “not sure.”

“Not sure?” wept Alicia.  “Oh, my heart, my heart!”

“I think—­could die in peace—­say ‘I love you, Richard,’” murmured the doctor.

“Oh, I do, I do love you, Richard—­frightfully!” sobbed Alicia.  “I love you with all my heart!”

The corpse sat up, and for a dead man he showed considerable life.  Painfully he rose, and stood staggering on his feet, big, pale, shaken, with a bump the size of an egg on the side of his head, but with such shining blue eyes!  He put out a big hand and lifted Alicia from the ground.

“Leetchy,” said Doctor Geddes, “if you ever take back what you’ve said I shall be sorry I wasn’t killed.  But I don’t mind staying alive if you’ll keep on loving me.  If I stay alive, will you marry me, Leetchy?”

“If you don’t, I can’t m-m-marry any-anybody at all!” wailed Alicia.

“Amen!” said the doctor.  “Now stop crying, and put your hand into my pocket, and you’ll find something that’s been owing you this long time, Leetchy.”

Alicia blinked, and rubbed her eyes, then slipped her hand into his breast pocket and drew forth a small, square, satin-lined box; an inviting box.

“Richard!” she exclaimed, “why, Richard!” Then:  “Of all the impudence!” cried Alicia, scandalized.  “Why, you haven’t even asked me!  Whoever in this world heard of buying a girl’s ring before she’s said ’Yes’?”

“Alicia,” said Doctor Richard Geddes, “I’m your Man, and you know it.  And you’re my Girl, and I know it.  Here, let’s see if this thing fits.”

Meekly Alicia, the impudent, the flirt, held out her slim hand.

“That’s settled, thank God!” said the doctor.  And he swept her clear off her feet, and kissed her with thoroughness and enthusiasm.

“Richard!  People are coming!  They’ll see you!”

“Let ’em!”

I sat there quietly, and stared at the two of them with a sort of vacant watchfulness.  My hat was gone, my hairpins had taken unto themselves wings, and my hair, covered with dust, hung about me like a veil.  I was just beginning to be conscious of pain.  It was a shuddering pain, new and cruel, and I winced.  The next minute Alicia was kneeling beside me, and her face had again become quite colorless.

“Sophy!” her voice sounded shrill and far off.  “Sophy, you said you were all right!—­Richard, look at Sophy!”

I felt the doctor’s swift, deft hands upon me.  And more pain.  People were arriving now.  Cars stopped, and excited men and women surrounded us.  One tall figure leaped from the first car and reached us ahead of all others.