"Ida, it's not true what I said," she said rapidly. "He's not my cousin, but some one whom I would give my life to save. I'm taking him to his house. You must come in with me--until we can get a doctor. I can't leave him. If you get a chance, tell Brennon it's my brother; he mustn't know." She had anticipated a struggle to get Lindaberry to his rooms; but, to her surprise, he walked from the car without wavering, and up the flight of stairs to his apartment. The two girls, leaving Brennon below with orders to wait, followed quickly. In a few moments his valet, hastily awakened, had let them in. He was a young fellow, strong and intelligent, and he gave a cry of relief at the sight of the master thus returned. "Dodo!" [Illustration: She gave a cry of horror] "Here I am!" she said quickly, touching Lindaberry's arm. "Oh!" He looked at her, and then, as if suddenly recollecting himself, imbued with the need of taking command, said: "Pretty bad; can't tell what happened. Doctor--Lampson--quick!" She turned calmly to the valet, feeling a deep delight in her control of the situation. "You know Doctor Lampson? Good! My car's down-stairs. Go and bring him immediately!" She returned to Lindaberry. "Garry, lie on the couch! You've got a scratch; I want to bind it up. Ida, bring me a couple of towels, sponge, water." He obeyed her, but his glance started nervously at the sight of Ida Summers. "Who's that?" She comprehended his humiliation that another should see him thus, and replied again, with a warning look at Ida, who came in: "My maid, Garry; that's all!" "Tell her--wait--outside." "Very well!" Ida, at a nod, went into the library, not without wonder at the quiet authority of voice and action in her butterfly friend. She made him stretch out on the sofa, and with sponge and towel quickly bathed and bound up the gash across his temple. The application of cold water seemed to calm him. He relaxed and closed his eyes as she remained at his side, applying the healing sponge. She studied the racked body and disordered head with a tightening of her heart. The weak and quivering lips, the sunken cheeks, the dark circles under the punished eyes, everything cried out to her: "You could have prevented this!" She accused herself with a thousand reproaches in the presence of this wreck she had made, and before his abject weakness her sense of possession awoke. He was hers, as Betty was hers--by right of the unanswered famine in her maternal heart. Come what might, she would not leave him until she had seen him back into strength and courage again. She called him but he had gone off into an unseeing delirium, wandering through what black and sunken ways! She drew off his shoes, disengaged the stained tie and collar, and by patient effort slipped the torn coat from him, covering him with a clean dressing-gown.