“She's not dead, I tell you--damn you for a fool!” exclaimed Captain Horton, dashing the blood from his wounded hand and stamping on the floor in a rage. “She is! she is! There's not a spark of life in her that I can feel! Oh, what shall I do?” He pushed her roughly aside and felt for the girl's pulse, and placed his hand over her heart, but was perhaps too much agitated himself to feel its feeble pulsations. “Good God, it can't be!” he said. “A girl can't be killed with a light knock in falling like that. No, no, she'll come to presently and be all right. And we're safe enough--not a soul knows where she is.” “Oh, don't you think that!” returned the woman, again kneeling down and chafing and slapping Fan's palms, and moistening her face. “The people at the other house were all there watching us when I brought the girl in. They're curious about it, and maybe suspect something; and when the policeman comes round you may be sure they'll tell him, and they'll have heard the screams too, and they'll be watching about now. Oh, what a blessed fool I was to have anything to do with it!” Captain Horton began cursing her again; but just then Fan's bosom moved, she drew a long breath, and presently her eyes opened. They were watching her with a feeling of intense relief, thinking that they had now escaped from a great and terrible danger. Fan looked up into the face of the woman bent over her, and gazed at her in a dazed kind of way, not yet remembering where she was or what had befallen her. Then she glanced at the man's face, a little distance off, shivered and closed her eyes, and in her stillness and extreme pallor seemed to have become insensible again, although her white lips twitched at intervals. “Go away, for God's sake! Go to the other room--it kills her to see you!” said the woman, in an excited whisper. He moved away and slipped out at the door very quietly, but presently called softly to the woman. “Here, make her swallow a little brandy,” he said, giving her a pocket flask. In about half an hour Fan had recovered so far that she could sit up in a chair; but with her strength her distress and terror came back, and feeling herself powerless she began to cry and beg to be let out. The woman went to the door and spoke softly to her companion. “It's all right now; she's getting over it.” “It's all wrong, I tell you,” said the other with an oath, and in a tone of concentrated rage. “There are two of your neighbour's boys prying about in front and trying to peer through the window. For heaven's sake get rid of her and let her go as soon as you can.” She was about to return to Fan when he called her back. “Take her to the station yourself,” he said; and proceeded to give her some directions which she promised to obey, after which she came back to Fan, to find her at the window feebly struggling to unfasten the stiff catch.