The body of Henry Little was not there.

Grace gave her purse to the women, and leaned heavily on Mr. Ransome’s arm again.  He supported her out of the works.

As soon as they were alone, she said, “Is Jael Dence alive or dead?”

“She was alive half an hour ago.”

“Where is she?”

“At the hospital.”

“Take me to the hospital.”

He took her to the hospital, and soon they stood beside a clean little bed, in which lay the white but still comely face of Jael Dence:  her luxuriant hair was cut close, and her head bandaged; but for her majestic form, she looked a fair, dying boy.

“Stand back,” said Grace, “and let me speak to her.”  Then she leaned over Jael, where she lay.

Gentle women are not all gentleness.  Watch them, especially in contact with their own sex, and you shall see now and then a trait of the wild animal.  Grace Carden at this moment was any thing but dove-like; it was more like a falcon the way she clutched the bedclothes, and towered over that prostrate figure, and then, descending slowly nearer and nearer, plunged her eyes into those fixed and staring orbs of Jael Dence.

So she remained riveted.  Had Jael been conscious, and culpable, nothing could have escaped a scrutiny so penetrating.

Even unconscious as she was, Jael’s brain and body began to show some signs they were not quite impervious to the strange magnetic power which besieged them so closely.  When Grace’s eyes had been close to hers about a minute, Jael Dence moved her head slightly to the left, as if those eyes scorched her.

But Grace moved her own head to the right, rapid as a snake, and fixed her again directly.

Jael Dence’s bosom gave a heave.

“Where—­is—­Henry Little?” said Grace, still holding her tight by the eye, and speaking very slowly, and in such a tone, low, but solemn and commanding; a tone that compelled reply.

“Where—­is—­Henry Little?”

When this was so repeated, Jael moved a little, and her lips began to quiver.

“Where—­is—­Henry Little?”

Jael’s lips opened feebly, and some inarticulate sounds issued from them.

“Where—­is—­Henry Little?”

Jael Dence, though unconscious, writhed and moaned so that the head nurse interfered, and said she could not have the patient tormented.

Ransome waved her aside, but taking Grace Carden’s hand drew her gently away.

She made no positive resistance; but, while her body yielded and retired, her eye remained riveted on Jael Dence, and her hand clutched the air like a hawk’s talons, unwilling to lose her prey, and then she turned so weak, Ransome had to support her to her carriage.

As Grace’s head sunk on Ransome’s shoulder, Jael Dence’s eyes closed for the first time.

As Ransome was lifting Grace Carden into the carriage, she said, in a sort of sleepy voice, “Is there no way out of these works but one?”