“It was awful--I can’t tell you,” she went on in a broken voice. “But you know what unspeakable agony it is to see what you love best on earth ill and suffering, and you nearly powerless to do a thing. And how I loved him! I never knew until then what he was--how much of my life he had become. You must know what agony I went through?” she looked interrogatively, beseechingly at the woman beside her. Miss Arbuthnot looked away. “I am not sure--I--I was never in love,” she said uncertainly. A curious wave of jealousy swept over her that she who had been such a student, whose whole life had been a study, should have somehow missed experiences that this girl had lived through already. The girl shook her head softly, pityingly, as if she could hardly believe her. “I shall never forget it, and that night,” she went on, closing her eyes faintly. “I thought he was dying. I had to have a doctor, but I was afraid to leave him. I remember how everything flashed through my mind. It was a decision for life or death. If I left him I knew I might never see him alive again, and yet if I did not----” She opened her eyes wide and clasped and unclasped her hands. “It was the most horrible moment of my life.” “My poor child!” Miss Arbuthnot put her hand timidly on the girl’s arm. She suddenly felt absurdly inexperienced in her presence. “I got Ivan’s saddle on him--I don’t know just how--and we started. It was about two o’clock I remember. The prairie looked just like the sea, at night--only more lonesome and quite silent. I was horribly frightened. Even Ivan was frightened. He trembled all over--it’s a terrible thing to see a horse tremble with fright.” “Do you mean to say,” demanded Professor Arbuthnot, “that you rode twenty miles in the dead of night, alone upon a Texas prairie?” “Yes,” answered the girl mechanically. “It was for Julian,” she added as if in entire explanation. Miss Arbuthnot looked at her; she could not realize such wealth of courage and devotion. She wondered with a sudden, hot shame whether she would have dared it had she been in this girl’s place. “I don’t think I ever prayed before--really _prayed_ you know,” she ran on meditatively as if she had forgotten the Professor’s presence. “It was dawn when we got back.” She stopped entirely and looked out through the window onto the cool green campus. Miss Arbuthnot scarcely dared move. There was something so intimate, almost sacred in the girl’s revelations. “Did he live?” she inquired softly at length. The girl turned her face toward her. An almost illuminated look had come into it. “Yes--the doctor saved his life, but he said if I had been two hours later----!” “_You_ saved his life!” Professor Arbuthnot got up and walked to the window. She could not quite take it all in. The girl appeared entirely different to her. She was looking at a woman who had saved the life of the man she loved.