But she knew, in spite of this greeting, that his heart was heavy.  Her own heart sank.  But she waited, asking no questions.  He would tell her when he was ready.

He drew her down upon the couch beside him and sat with his arm around her.  “No, I don’t want to lie down just yet,” he said.  “I just want you.  I’m keeping you in suspense, I know; I oughtn’t to do that.  Jord’s life is all right, and he’ll be himself again in time, but—­well, I’ve lost my nerve for a bit—­I can’t talk about it.”

His voice broke.  By and by it steadied again; and, his weariness partially lifted by the heartening little breakfast Ellen brought him on a tray, he told her the story of the night: 

“Jord was coming in from the Coldtown Waterworks, forty miles out, late for dinner and hustling to make up time.  Aleck, the Kings’ chauffeur, was with him.  They were coming in at a good clip, even for a back street, probably twenty-five or thirty.  There wasn’t much on the street except ahead, by the curb, a wagon, and coming toward him a big motor truck.  When he was fifty feet from the wagon a fellow stepped out from behind it to cross the street.  It was right under the arc light, and Jord recognized Franz—­’Little Hungary’ you know—­with his fiddle under his arm, crossing to go in at the stage door of the Victoria Theatre, where he plays.  The boy didn’t see them at all.

“Neither Jord nor Aleck can tell much about it yet, of course, but from the little I got I know as well as if I had been there what happened.  He slammed on the brakes—­it was the only thing he could do, with the motor truck taking up half the narrow street.  The pavement was wet—­a shower was just over.  Of course she skidded completely around to the left, just missing the truck, and when she hit the curb over she went.  She jammed Jord between the car and the ground, injuring his back pretty badly but not permanently, as nearly as I can make out.  But she crushed Aleck’s right arm so that—­”

He drew a long breath, a difficult breath, and Ellen, listening, cried out against the thing she instantly felt it meant.

“O Red!  You don’t mean—­”

He nodded.  “I took it off, an hour afterward—­at the shoulder.”

Ellen turned white, and in a moment more she was crying softly within the shelter of her husband’s arm.  He sat with set lips, and eyes staring at the empty fireplace before him.  Presently he spoke again, and his voice was very low, as if he could not trust it: 

“Aleck was game.  He was the gamest chap I ever saw.  All he said when I told him was, ‘Go ahead, Doctor.’  I never did a harder thing in all my life.  I suppose army surgeons get more or less used to it, but somehow—­when I knew what that arm meant to Aleck, and how an hour before it had been a perfect thing, and now—­”

He did not try to tell her more just then, but later, when both were steadied, he added a few more important details to the story: