"Hush! Do you suppose," her cheeks reddened and her eyes flashed as I had seen them flash before, "do you suppose I would go away and leave you now? Now, when you are hurt and ill and--and--after all that you have done! After I treated you as I did! Oh, let me do something! Let me do a little, the veriest little in return. I--Oh, stop! stop! What are you doing?"

I suppose I was trying to sit up; I remember raising myself on my elbow.

Then came the pain again, the throbbing in my head and the agonizing pain in my side. And after that there is another long interval in my recollections.

For a week--of course I did not know it was a week then--my memories consist only of a series of flashes like the memory of the hours immediately following the accident. I remember people talking, but not what they said; I remember her voice, or I think I do, and the touch of her hand on my forehead. And afterward, other voices, Hephzy's in particular. But when I came to myself, weak and shaky, but to remain myself for good and all, Hephzy--the real Hephzy--was in the room with me.

Even then they would not let me ask questions. Another day dragged by before I was permitted to do that. Then Hephzy told me I had a cracked rib and a variety of assorted bruises, that I had suffered slight concussion of the brain, and that my immediate job was to behave myself and get well.

"Land sakes!" she exclaimed, "there was a time when I thought you never was goin' to get well. Hour after hour I've set here and listened to your gabblin' away about everything under the sun and nothin' in particular, as crazy as a kitten in a patch of catnip, and thought and thought, what should I do, what SHOULD I do. And now I KNOW what I'm goin' to do. I'm goin' to keep you in that bed till you're strong and well enough to get out of it, if I have to sit on you to hold you down.

And I'm no hummin'-bird when it comes to perchin', either."

She had received the telegram which Frances sent and had come from Interlaken post haste.

"And I don't know," she declared, "which part of that telegram upset me most--what there was in it or the name signed at the bottom of it. HER name! I couldn't believe my eyes. I didn't stop to believe 'em long. I just came. And then I found you like this."

"Was she here?" I asked.

"Who--Frances! My, yes, she was here. So pale and tired lookin' that I thought she was goin' to collapse. But she wouldn't give in to it.

She told me all about how it happened and what the doctor said and everything. I didn't pay much attention to it then. All I could think of was you. Oh, Hosy! my poor boy! I--I--"

"There! there!" I broke in, gently. "I'm all right now, or I'm going to be. You will have the quahaug on your hands for a while longer. But,"

returning to the subject which interested me most, "what else did she tell you? Did she tell you how I met her--and where?"

"Why, yes. She's singin' somewhere--she didn't say where exactly, but it is in some kind of opera-house, I judged. There's a perfectly beautiful opera-house a little ways from here on the Avenue de L'Opera, right by the Boulevard des Italiens, though there's precious few Italians there, far's I can see. And why an opera is a l'opera I--"

"Wait a moment, Hephzy. Did she tell you of our meeting? And how I found her?"

"Why, not so dreadful much, Hosy. She's acted kind of queer about that, seemed to me. She said you went to this opera-house, wherever it was, and saw her there. Then you and she were crossin' the road and one of these dreadful French automobiles--the way they let the things tear round is a disgrace--ran into you. I declare! It almost made ME sick to hear about it. And to think of me away off amongst those mountains, enjoyin' myself and not knowin' a thing! Oh, it makes me ashamed to look in the glass. I NEVER ought to have left you alone, and I knew it. It's a judgment on me, what's happened is."

"Or on me, I should rather say," I added. Frances had not told Hephzy of L'Abbaye, that was evident. Well, I would keep silence also.

"Where is she now?" I asked. I asked it with as much indifference as I could assume, but Hephzy smiled and patted my hand.

"Oh, she comes every day to ask about you," she said. "And Doctor Bayliss comes too. He's been real kind."

"Bayliss!" I exclaimed. "Is he with--Does he come here?"

"Yes, he comes real often, mostly about the time she does. He hasn't been here for two days now, though. Hosy, do you suppose he has spoken to her about--about what he spoke to you?"

"I don't know," I answered, curtly. Then I changed the subject.

"Has she said anything to you about coming back to Mayberry?" I asked.

"Have you told her how we feel toward her?"

Hephzy's manner changed. "Yes," she said, reluctantly, "I've told her.

I've told her everything."

"Not everything? Hephzy, you haven't told her--"

"No, no. Of course I didn't tell her THAT. You know I wouldn't, Hosy.

But I told her that her money havin' turned out to be our money didn't make a mite of difference. I told her how much we come to think of her and how we wanted her to come with us and be the same as she had always been. I begged her to come. I said everything I could say."

"And she said?"

"She said no, Hosy. She wouldn't consider it at all. She asked me not to talk about it. It was settled, she said. She must go her way and we ours and we must forget her. She was more grateful than she could tell--she most cried when she said that--but she won't come back and if I asked her again she declared she should have to go away for good."

"I know. That is what she said to me."

"Yes. I can't make it out exactly. It's her pride, I suppose. Her mother was just as proud. Oh, dear! When I saw her here for the first time, after I raced back from Interlaken, I thought--I almost hoped--but I guess it can't be."

I did not answer. I knew only too well that it could not be.

"Does she seem happy?" I asked.

"Why, no; I don't think she is happy. There are times, especially when you began to get better, when she seemed happier, but the last few times she was here she was--well, different."

"How different?"

"It's hard to tell you. She looked sort of worn and sad and discouraged.

Hosy, what sort of a place is it she is singin' in?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"Oh, I don't know. Some things you said when you were out of your head made me wonder. That, and some talk I overheard her and Doctor Bayliss havin' one time when they were in the other room--my room--together. I had stepped out for a minute and when I came back, I came in this door instead of the other. They were in the other room talkin' and he was beggin' her not to stay somewhere any more. It wasn't a fit place for her to be, he said; her reputation would be ruined. She cut him short by sayin' that her reputation was her own and that she should do as she thought best, or somethin' like that. Then I coughed, so they would know I was around, and they commenced talkin' of somethin' else. But it set me thinkin' and when you said--"

She paused. "What did I say?" I asked.

"Why, 'twas when she and I were here. You had been quiet for a while and all at once you broke out--delirious you was--beggin' somebody or other not to do somethin'. For your sake, for their own sake, they mustn't do it. 'Twas awful to hear you. A mixed-up jumble about Abbie, whoever she is--not much, by the way you went on about her--and please, please, please, for the Lord's sake, give it up. I tried to quiet you, but you wouldn't be quieted. And finally you said: 'Frances! Oh, Frances! don't!

Say that you won't any more.' I gave you your sleepin' drops then; I thought 'twas time. I was afraid you'd say somethin' that you wouldn't want her to hear. You understand, don't you, Hosy?"

"I understand. Thank you, Hephzy."

"Yes. Well, _I_ didn't understand and I asked her if she did. She said no, but she was dreadfully upset and I think she did understand, in spite of her sayin' it. What sort of a place is it, this opera-house where she sings?"

I dodged the question as best I could. I doubt if Hephzy's suspicions were allayed, but she did not press the subject. Instead she told me I had talked enough for that afternoon and must rest.

That evening I saw Bayliss for the first time since the accident.

He congratulated me on my recovery and I thanked him for his help in bringing me to the hotel. He waved my thanks aside.

"Quite unnecessary, thanking me," he said, shortly. "I couldn't do anything else, of course. Well, I must be going. Glad you're feeling more fit, Knowles, I'm sure."

"And you?" I asked. "How are you?"

"I? Oh, I'm fit enough, I suppose. Good-by."

He didn't look fit. He looked more haggard and worn and moody than ever.

And his manner was absent and distrait. Hephzy noticed it; there were few things she did not notice.

"Either that boy's meals don't agree with him," she announced, "or somethin's weighin' on his mind. He looks as if he'd lost his last friend. Hosy, do you suppose he's spoken to--to her about what he spoke of to you?"