“Hush, hush! my dear Lord Carthew! You really must not excite yourself. You are in very good hands indeed. I informed Lady Cranstoun that you must not be moved to-night, and she instantly insisted that you and Mr. Pritchard should be her guests until you have completely recovered. She is greatly distressed at your accident, I assure you. I must leave you now and join the ladies at dinner, which has been postponed for over an hour. You will soon be about again, believe me.” “But why do you call me Lord Carthew?” Hilary inquired, trying to sit up. The doctor exchanged a sympathetic glance with Claud. “Poor fellow!” he murmured. “Loss of blood--consequent weakness. He is wandering in his mind.” CHAPTER III. A SIREN. As soon as the doctor had left the room, Hilary endeavored to struggle into a sitting position, from which he was restrained by Margaret, who had been told off to nurse him. “Do, pray, keep quiet, my lord; you will undo all the doctor’s work. Now, take your medicine and lie still, please.” “I’ll take the medicine if you like, but on condition that you go away then, nurse, if you please, and leave me to talk to my friend here.” “Don’t let him talk too much and excite himself,” was Margaret’s parting admonition to Lord Carthew as she left the room. As soon as they were alone, Hilary plunged into his subject, regardless of his friend’s warning gesture. From where he lay on the bed, the wounded man could not see the kneeling figure of the servant over the fire on the farther side of the great, bare room. “What is all this foolery about changing names with me?” he began. “It must be stopped at once. I won’t stay for five minutes in the house under false pretences.” “I am afraid you won’t be able to do much more with that fire,” Lord Carthew observed, raising his voice as he addressed the servant, while he glanced meaningly at his friend. “I am afraid not, sir,” returned the woman, civilly. A few moments later she left the room, and carefully applied her ear to the keyhole outside, from which position she was enabled now and then to overhear scraps of the conversation within. “Now let us talk this matter out quietly and in as few words as possible,” Lord Carthew began, drawing a chair to his friend’s bedside. “What does it matter to you for twenty-four hours what they call you? You will probably never see any of these people again. I have introduced us both in one set of names to Miss Cranstoun, and she has passed us on under those names to the doctor and to her mother. It’s impossible to go back now. You had agreed to the arrangement which we started earlier in the day. There is no reason why we should not play our little comedy out just because an unlucky accident has intervened.”