He was not dead, and yet the bleeding had stopped. Then they must get him home; get him somewhere as best they could. A string bed was brought from the nearest village, with relays of willing yet placid bearers; Belle walked beside it, in Philip's helmet, for her own hat had been lost in the quicksand, keeping her hand on the rough bandages while John raced ahead to set the doors open. It was dreary crossing the threshold of the new house, with the jostling, shuffling footsteps of those who carry something that is death's or will be death's. But there was a light in Belle's eyes, and even her husband, accustomed as he was to her even nerves, wondered at her calm decision. Since they must procure a doctor as quickly as possible, the best plan would be for John to ride across country to a station where the afternoon mail stopped. To return to Saudaghur and a mere hospital assistant would be needless delay. She did not mind, she said, being left alone; and meanwhile they must send for a supply of necessaries since it was evident that Philip could not be moved, at any rate for a day or two. So Belle sat in the big empty room, which by and by was to be hers, and watched alone by the unconscious man, feeling that it was her turn now. It was a vigil not to be forgotten. And once as she raised his head on her arm in order to moisten his lips with the stimulant which alone seemed to keep life in him, he stirred slightly, his eyes opened for a second, and a faint murmur reached her ear, "No need for a policeman." A smile, pathetic in its absolute self-surrender, came to her face as she stooped and kissed him with the passion of protection and possession which a mother has for her helpless child; and that is a love which casts out fear. As she crouched once more beside the coarse pallet where he lay, for the room was destitute of all furniture save the string woven bed, Belle Raby, for the first time in her life, faced facts undistorted by her own ideals, and judged things as they were, not as they ought to be. She loved this man; but what was that love? Was it a thing to be spoken of with bated breath just because the object happened to be a person whom, all things consenting, one might have married? Her nature was healthy and unselfish; her knowledge of the "devastating passion" which is said to devour humanity was derived entirely from a pious but unreasoning belief in what she was told. It is not the fashion nowadays to say so, but that is really the position in which a vast majority of women find themselves in regard to many social problems. And so, in that dreary, shadowy room, with the man she loved dependent on her care for his sole chance of life, Belle Raby asked herself wherein lay the sin or shame of such a love as hers, and found no answer.