"It is nothing more than a little boy with a bump on his forehead," said Gordon to Clemency. "Now, child, stop crying, and go and bathe your eyes. Emma, is luncheon ready?" When both women had gone Gordon, who had been applying some ointment to James's forehead, said in a low voice, broken by emotion, "You are all right, Elliot, but--you did have a close call." "I suppose I did," James said, laughing feebly. He essayed to rise, but Gordon held him down. "No, keep still," he said. "You must not stir to-day. I will have your luncheon brought in. Clemency will be only too happy to wait on you, hand and foot." "Poor little girl, I must have given her an awful fright," said James. "Well, you are not exactly the looking object to do anything else," said Gordon laughing. "Where is there a glass?" "Where you won't have it. You won't be scarred. It is simply a temporary eclipse of your beauty, and Clemency will love you all the more for it. You need not worry. Talk about the vanity of women. I thought you were above it, Elliot. Now lie still. If you get up you will be giddy." James lay still, smiling. He felt very happy, and his love for Clemency seemed like a glow of pure radiance in his heart. He lay on the office lounge all the afternoon. He fell asleep with Clemency sitting beside holding his hand. Gordon had gone out to finish the calls. It was six o'clock before he drove into the yard. James had just awakened and lay feeling a great peace and content. Clemency was smiling down at his discolored face, as if it were the face of an angel. The windows were open, and the distant lowing of cattle, waiting at homeward bars, the monotone of frogs, and the songs of circling swallows came in. James felt as if he saw in a celestial vision the whole world and life, and that it was all blessed and good, that even the pain and sorrow blossomed in the end into ineffable flowers of pure delight. But when Doctor Gordon entered this vision was clouded, for Gordon's face had reassumed its old expression of settled melancholy and despair. He inquired how James found himself with an apathetic air, and then sat down and mechanically filled his pipe. After it was filled he seemed to forget to light it, so deep was his painful reverie. He sat with it in hand, staring straight ahead. Then a strange thing happened. The office door opened and Mrs. Blair, the nurse, entered. She was dressed in black, she carried a black travelling bag, and she wore a black bonnet, with a high black tuft on the top by way of trimming. Mrs. Blair was very tall, and this black tuft, when she entered the door, barely grazed the lintel. Gordon rose and said good evening, and regarded her in a bewildered fashion, as did James and Clemency.