He knelt over Tommy and poured a slow stream of cold water on his face and down his neck. When this had no effect he continued the stream over his body, clad in linen clothes, much as one waters a flower bed. The children held their breath and watched. Signs of returning life were visible. As the cold shower struck the pit of his stomach, one knee hitched. Encouraged, Herbert spilt the last pint in his upturned face. It contorted, he choked, gasped, yelled defiantly: "Mmmm-bah-what ye doin'?" Margie Hunter knelt at his head. "You aren't dead, are you, Tommy?" "I'm all wet," he exclaimed, irritably. Isabelle still stood on the spot where she had struck the blow. Her face was set and white. "I guess we better get him in the house now," Herbert advised. "What will we tell them?" Margie asked. Herbert looked at Isabelle, then he swept them all with a chieftain's glance, and remarked: "Tommy fell into the pool, an' nearly drownded himself. Get me?" They nodded. "Make a stretcher with crossed hands." His men obeyed. "Now, you girls, move him onto our hands." They all worked except Isabelle, who never moved. "Quit. I want to walk," said Tommy. "All right, Tommy. You fell into the pool." "I did not," said Tommy. "Yes, you did, and if you leave it to us, we'll square it so you won't get licked," Herbert promised. The stretcher men rose and bore the hero off toward the house, followed by the children, all except Isabelle. Her breath came in agonized gasps. As they disappeared she threw herself down on her face and let her nerves have full sway. She did not cry tears, but her body shook in a nervous storm of excitement, and misery. She did not hear the swift feet that approached, she scarcely heard Herbert's embarrassed voice saying: "Say, Isabelle, it's all right. The chambermaid put him to bed and telephoned his mother to send him some clothes." She raised her tragic face to him. "Will the police take me?" she whispered. Without meaning to do so at all, Herbert dropped down beside her. "You didn't kill him. He's all right," he repeated. Then as a nervous tremor shook her body, he patted her, awkwardly. "You're all right, Isabelle, it was just an accident," he comforted her. She shook her head, and the tears came. Herbert leaned over and planted a kiss under her right ear. She stopped crying. He did not know what more to say, so he just sat by. In that half hour of self-accusation, of reaction from terror, of the consciousness of the sympathy of a friend who had saved her from the police, Isabelle closed the chapter of childhood and stepped over into young girlhood. CHAPTER TEN During the next few years of Isabelle's life she was more of a trial to her household than ever before, if such a thing were possible. She overplayed the tomboy, just as she did every role she essayed.