“Did I faint?” he asked morosely.

“Yes.  Lucky you did, too,” responded Sara cheerfully.  “Doctor Dick rigged your ankle up all nice and comfy without your being any the wiser.”

“Fainted—­like a girl—­over a broken ankle, my hat!”—­with immense scorn.

Sara was hard put to it not to laugh outright at his face of disgust.

“You might remember that you’re not strong yet,” she suggested soothingly.

They talked for a little, and presently Tim, whose eyelids had been blinking somnolently for some time, gave vent to an unmistakable yawn.

“I’m—­I’m confoundedly sleepy,” he murmured apologetically.

“Then go to sleep,” came promptly from Sara.  “It’s quite the best thing you can do.  I’ll run off and write a judicious letter to Elisabeth—­about your sprain”—­smiling.

With a glance round to see that he had candle, matches, and a hand-bell within reach, she turned out the lamp and slipped quietly away.  Tim was asleep almost before she had quitted the room.

It was several hours later when Sara sat up in bed, broad awake, in response to the vigorous shaking that some one was administering to her.

She opened her eyes to the yellow glare of a candle.  Behind the glare materialized a vision of Jane Crab, attired in a red flannel dressing-gown, and with her hair tightly strained into four skimpy plaits which stuck out horizontally from her head like the surviving rays of a badly damaged halo.

“Miss Sara!  Miss Sara!” She apostrophized the rudely awakened sleeper in a sibilant whisper, as though afraid of being overheard.  “Get up, quick!  They ’Uns is ’ere!”

“Who is here?” exclaimed Sara, somewhat startled.

“The Zepps, miss—­the Zepps!  The guns are firing off every minute or two.  There!”—­as the blurred thunder of anti-aircraft guns boomed in the distance.  “There they go again!”

Sara leaped out of bed in an instant, hastily pulling on a fascinating silk kimono and thrusting her bare feet into a pair of scarlet Turkish slippers.

“One may as well die tidy,” she reflected philosophically.  Then, turning to Jane—­

“Where’s the doctor?” she demanded.

“Trying to get the mistress downstairs.  She’s that scared, she won’t budge from her bed.”

Sara giggled—­Jane’s face was very expressive.

“Well, I’m going into Mr. Durward’s room,” she announced.  “We shall see better there.”

Jane’s little beady eyes glittered.

“Aye, I’d like to see them at their devil’s work,” she allowed fondly, with a threatening “Just-let-me-catch-them-at-it!” intonation in her voice.

Sara laughed, and they both repaired to Tim’s room, encountering Molly on the way and sweeping her along in their train.  They found Tim volubly cursing his inability to get up and “watch the fun.”

“Look out and tell me if you can see the blighters,” he commanded.