"He must not be allowed to die--he must be saved!" Nola reached out her hands, standing now on her knees, as if to call back his struggling soul. "Belated tears will not save him. Get up--it's time for you to go." Nola bent forward suddenly, her hair sweeping the wounded man's face, her lips near his brow. Frances caught her with a sound in her throat like a growl, and flung her back. "You'll not kiss him--you'll never kiss him!" she said. Nola sprang up, not crying now, but hot with sudden anger. "If you were out of the way he'd love me!" "Love _you!_ you little cat!" "Yes, he'd love me--I'd take him away from you like I've taken other men! He'd love me, I tell you--he'd love _me!_" Frances looked at her steadily a moment, contempt in her eloquent face. "If you have no other virtue in you, at least have some respect for the dying," she said. "He's not dying, he'll not die!" Nola hotly denied. "He'll live--live to love me!" "Go! This room--" "It's my house; I'll go and come in it when I please." "I'm a prisoner in it, not a guest. I'll force you out of the room if I must. This disgraceful behavior must end, and end this minute. Are you going?" "If you were out of the way, he'd love me," said Nola from the door, spiteful, resentful, speaking slowly, as if pressing each word into Frances' brain and heart; "if you were out of the way." CHAPTER XXI THE MAN IN THE DOOR When the doctor from the agency arrived at dawn, hours after Mrs. Mathews, he found everything done for the wounded man that skill and experience could suggest. Mrs. Mathews had carried instruments, antiseptics, bandages, with her, and she had no need to wait for anybody's directions in their use. So the doctor, who had been reinforced by the same capable hands many a time before, took a cup of hot coffee and rode home. Mrs. Mathews moved about as quietly as a nun, and with that humility and sense of self-effacement that comes of penances and pains, borne mainly for others who have fallen with bleeding feet beside the way. She was not an old woman, only as work and self-sacrifice had aged her. Her abundant black hair--done up in two great braids which hung in front of her shoulders, Indian-wise, and wrapped at their ends with colored strings--was salted over with gray, but her beautiful small hands were as light and swift as any girl's. Good deeds had blessed them with eternal youth, it seemed. She wore a gray dress, sprinkled over with twinkling little Indian gauds and bits of finery such as the squaws love. This barbaric adornment seemed unaccountable in the general sobriety of her dress, for not a jewel, save her wedding-ring alone, adorned her. Frances did not marvel that she felt so safe in this gentle being's presence, safe for herself, safe for the man who was more to her than her own soul.