Dick and Graham stood apart from Paula while Doctor Robinson made his examination. When he arose with an air of finality, Dick looked his question. Robinson shook his head. "Nothing to be done," he said. "It is a matter of hours, maybe of minutes." He hesitated, studying Dick's face for a moment. "I can ease her off if you say the word. She might possibly recover consciousness and suffer for a space." Dick took a turn down the room and back, and when he spoke it was to Graham. "Why not let her live again, brief as the time may be? The pain is immaterial. It will have its inevitable quick anodyne. It is what I would wish, what you would wish. She loved life, every moment of it. Why should we deny her any of the little left her?" Graham bent his head in agreement, and Dick turned to the doctor. "Perhaps you can stir her, stimulate her, to a return of consciousness. If you can, do so. And if the pain proves too severe, then you can ease her." * * * * * When her eyes fluttered open, Dick nodded Graham up beside him. At first bewilderment was all she betrayed, then her eyes focused first on Dick's face, then on Graham's, and, with recognition, her lips parted in a pitiful smile. "I... I thought at first that I was dead," she said. But quickly another thought was in her mind, and Dick divined it in her eyes as they searched him. The question was if he knew it was no accident. He gave no sign. She had planned it so, and she must pass believing it so. "I... was... wrong," she said. She spoke slowly, faintly, in evident pain, with a pause for strength of utterance between each word. "I was always so cocksure I'd never have an accident, and look what I've gone and done." "It's a darn shame," Dick said, sympathetically. "What was it? A jam?" She nodded, and again her lips parted in the pitiful brave smile as she said whimsically: "Oh, Dick, go call the neighbors in and show them what little Paula's din. "How serious is it?" she asked. "Be honest, Red Cloud, you know _me,"_ she added, after the briefest of pauses in which Dick had not replied. He shook his head. "How long?" she queried. "Not long," came his answer. "You can ease off any time." "You mean...?" She glanced aside curiously at the doctor and back to Dick, who nodded. "It's only what I should have expected from you, Red Cloud," she murmured gratefully. "But is Doctor Robinson game for it?" The doctor stepped around so that she could see him, and nodded. "Thank you, doctor. And remember, I am to say when." "Is there much pain?" Dick queried. Her eyes were wide and brave and dreadful, and her lips quivered for the moment ere she replied, "Not much, but dreadful, quite dreadful. I won't care to stand it very long. I'll say when." Once more the smile on her lips announced a whimsey.