“I--don’t know!” she stammered, holding the knob tight; then made an effort to pull herself together. “If you mean Mr. Wigmore, I am just looking for him. He may be resting in here, away from the crowd. He seemed very tired after the match.” The hatchet-faced man echoed “_Match!_” in a tone that was half-bitter irony and half a snarling curse. The big man behind laughed a sad and perfectly hopeless laugh. One of them took the knob out of Harriet’s hand and pushed the door. On the hearth by the steel fender Wiggie was fallen, the comforting glow of the fire playing over his white shirt and his closed eyes. The rocker stood empty above his quiet head. The kitten curled, purring, in the curve of his helpless arm. * * * * * But he was not dead. Sitting alone in her own room, Harriet willed it with all the force of her personality. He _should_ not be dead! The men had said he was, and he had looked it, lying there without a breath, but she would not have it so. After they had carried him up to Stubbs’ room and shut the door on her, she had gone across to her own and willed him violently back to existence. He had been her player, her loyal man; he was her guest. He could not die under her roof. In some inexplicable fashion he seemed to belong to her, this stranger from another life and another world. Downstairs, the teams made merry, wondering a little what had happened to their hostess. Somebody had seen a car come up; perhaps she was wanted on business. That Wigmore chap had disappeared, too. Pity! They would have liked a word with him. Somebody said he was stopping at Watters, so probably he had cleared off at once. He had certainly looked thoroughly played out. Stubbs, explaining to a bursting Saunders exactly how and where he would not be hit by him again, was unaware of any tragedy passing overhead. Only the little curate, emerging last from a flying bath, with his round face glowing above the neatest of clericals, paused on the landing upstairs, brought to halt by a sure instinct of trouble. As he did so, the door sprang open in his face, and a desperate man strode out on top of him. He recoiled when he saw the parsonic figure, as if it had struck him. “What’s brought _you_ along?” he demanded roughly. “He’s not dead, yet--not going to be dead, I tell you! You can take yourself and your psalm-singing off again!” Davids said: “Hockey--bath--just passing--can I help?” with cogent simplicity, and the other relaxed. He thrust a paper into the curate’s hand. “Fetch the nearest doctor, will you, and ask him to bring anything he can? Car at the door. There’s a chemist somewhere in this county, I suppose? If not, send the chauffeur to Lancaster--Manchester--anywhere. Fire along, and never mind limits. We pay. But for God’s sake hurry!”