There was something curious about one of the windows.  He slowed Annabelle and gazed at it.  That was strange; there was a sort of white rope hanging from Mrs. Doyle’s window.

He stopped Annabelle and stared.  Then he drew up to the curb and got out of the car.  He was rather uneasy when he opened the gate and started up the walk, but there was no movement of life in the house.  At the foot of the steps he saw something, and almost stopped breathing.  Behind a clump of winter-bare shrubbery was what looked like a dark huddle of clothing.

It was incredible.

He parted the branches and saw Elinor Doyle lying there, conscious and white with pain.  Perhaps never in his life was Doctor Smalley to be so rewarded as with the look in her eyes when she saw him.

“Why, Mrs. Doyle!” was all he could think to say.

“I have broken my other leg, doctor,” she said, “the rope gave way.”

“You come down that rope?”

“I tried to.  I was a prisoner.  Don’t take me back to the house, doctor.  Don’t take me back!”

“Of course I’ll not take you back,” he said, soothingly.  “I’ll carry you out to my car.  It may hurt, but try to be quiet.  Can you get your arms around my neck?”

She managed that, and he raised her slowly, but the pain must have been frightful, for a moment later he felt her arms relax and knew that she had fainted.  He got to the car somehow, kicked the oranges into the gutter, and placed her, collapsed, on the seat.  It was only then that he dared to look behind him, but the house, like the street, was without signs of life.  As he turned the next corner, however, he saw Doyle getting off a streetcar, and probably never before had Annabelle made such speed as she did for the next six blocks.

Hours later Elinor Cardew wakened in a quiet room with gray walls, and with the sickening sweet odor of ether over everything.  Instead of Olga a quiet nurse sat by her bed, and standing by a window, in low-voiced conversation, were two men.  One she knew, the doctor.  The other, a tall young man with a slight limp as he came toward her, she had never seen before.  A friendly young man, thin, and grave of voice, who put a hand over hers and said: 

“You are not to worry about anything, Mrs. Doyle.  You understand me, don’t you?  Everything is all right.  I am going now to get your people.”

“My husband?”

“Your own people,” he said.  “I have already telephoned to your brother.  And the leg’s fixed.  Everything’s as right as rain.”

Elinor closed her eyes.  She felt no pain and no curiosity.  Only there was something she had to do, and do quickly.  What was it?  But she could not remember, because she felt very sleepy and relaxed, and as though everything was indeed as right as rain.

It was evening when she looked up again, and the room was dark.  The doctor had gone, and the grave young man was still in the room.  There was another figure there, tall and straight, and at first she thought it was Jim Doyle.