Pat had seen his patient off and was threading his way through a crowded thoroughfare, with eyes alert for everything, when a little bright-red racer passed him at a furious rate, driven by a woman with a reckless hand.  She shot by the ambulance like a rocket, and at the next corner came face to face with a great motor-truck that was thundering around the corner at a tempestuous speed.  From the first glance there was no chance for the racer.  It crumpled like a thing of paper and lay in bright splinters on the street, the lady tossed aside and motionless, with her head against the curbing.

The crowd closed in about her, and some one sent a call for the police.  The crowd opened again as an officer signed to the ambulance to stand by, and kindly hands put the lady inside.  Pat put on all speed to the home hospital, which was not far away, and was soon within its gates, with the house doctor and a nurse rushing out in answer to his signal.

There was a light in the church close at hand, although it was not yet dark.  Bonnie was playing softly on the organ.  Pat knew the hymn she was playing: 

     At evening, ere the sun was set,
       The sick, O Lord! around Thee lay;
     Oh, with what divers ills they met,
       Oh, with what joy they went away!

     Once more ’tis eventide, and we,
       Oppressed with various ills, draw near—­

Pat was following the melody in his mind with the words that were so often sung in the Church of the Presence of God at evening service.  He jumped down from his driver’s seat and went around to the back of the ambulance, where they were preparing to carry the patient into the building.  He was wondering what sort it was this time that he had brought to the House of Healing.  Then suddenly he saw her face and stopped short, with a suppressed exclamation.

There, huddled on the stretcher, in her costly sporting garments, with her long, dark lashes sweeping over her hard, little painted face, and a pinched look of suffering about her loose-hung baby mouth, lay Gila!

He knew her at once and drew back in horror.  What had he done!  Brought her here, this viper of evil that had crept into the garden of his friends and despoiled them of their joy!  Why had he not looked at her before they started?  Fool that he was!  He might easily have taken her to another hospital instead of this one.  He could do so yet.

But Courtland was standing on the steps, looking down at the huddled figure on the stretcher, with a strange expression of pity and tenderness in his face.

“I did not know!  I did not see her before, Court!” stammered Pat.  “I will take her somewhere else now before she has been disturbed.”

“No, Pat, it’s all right!  It is fitting that she should come to us.  I’m glad you found her.  You must have been led!  Call Bonnie, please.  And, Pat, watch for Nelly and take him into my study.  He was coming down on the Boston express.  Let me know as soon as he gets here.”