He had succeeded in getting the poor, wounded, mangled body from the line itself to the comparative safety of the space between that row of metals and the next. More than this he dared not attempt until further help came. He sent the workman to the office with directions that he should send in search of a surgeon the first person he met on the way. He was then to break the news, not to Mr. Cornthwaite himself, if he were still there, but to one of the managers or to one of the older clerks. The man went away, and Christian, who had lain so still for some seconds that Bram feared he was past help already, opened his eyes. “Hallo, Bram,” said he, in a very weak, faint, and broken voice, but with something like his old cheerfulness of manner. “It’s odd that I should peg out here, in the very thick of the smoke and the grime I’ve always hated so much, isn’t it?” Bram could not speak for a minute. When he did, it was in a ferocious growl. “Don’t talk of pegging out, Mr. Christian,” said he. “You don’t want to give in yet, eh?” He spoke like this, not that he had the slightest hope left, but because he wished to keep in the flicker of life as long as he could, at least until the father could exchange one last hand-clasp with his dying son. And Bram judged that hope was the best stimulant he could administer. But Chris only smiled ever so faintly. “Oh, Bram, you don’t really think it would be worth while to rig me up with a pair of wooden legs, do you? I shouldn’t be much like myself, should I? And the guv’nor wouldn’t have to complain of my running after the girls any more, would he?” Bram shivered. These light words had a terrible import now, and they sent his thoughts back from the sufferer to the author of the outrage. He glanced round instinctively, and an involuntary sound escaped his lips as he saw, standing on the edge of the network of lines, only a few feet from himself and Chris, the figure of Claire. With head bent and hands clasped, she stood, neither moving nor uttering a sound, but watching the two men with wild eyes, and with a look of unspeakable, stony, horror on her gray white face. Chris looked up, caught sight of her, and uttered a cry. “Claire! Claire!” he called, in a voice hoarse and unlike his own. She did not move, did not seem to hear him. Then Bram called to her. “Come. He wants you to come.” At the sound of Bram’s voice she looked up suddenly, shivered, and came slowly nearer. “Look out! Take care! Come here between the lines!” said Bram. She obeyed his directions mechanically, stumbling as she came. When she found herself beside the two men, she fell to trembling violently, but without shedding a single tear. Chris tried to raise himself, and Bram lifted him up so that he could meet her eyes. “Claire!” said the dying man in a whisper, “come here. Don’t look down. Look at my face--my face.”