“Oh, Jim, Jim!” the thin and far-away voice seemed to be wailing, “oh, Jim, I had to do it! I had to—to save you from yourself! You would have killed him. . . . You would have shot him dead. . . . And that would be the end of everything. . . . Don’t you understand, my beloved own?” Some heavy gray veil seemed to lift away, and the wounded man opened his eyes, and moved uneasily. “It’s only the arm, poor boy . . . but I know it hurts!” “What is it?” he asked vacantly. “It’s only the arm, and not a bone broken! See, I’ve stopped the bleeding, and a week or two of quiet somewhere, and it’ll be all better! Then—then you’ll sit up and thank God for it!” He could hear her voice more distinctly now, and could feel her hands feverishly caressing his face and hair. “Speak to me, Jim,” she pleaded, passionately. “You’re all I’ve got—you’re all that’s left to me in the whole wide world!” He opened his eyes again, and smiled at her; but it was such a wan and broken smile that a tempest of weeping swept over the woman bending above him. He could feel her hot tears scalding his face. Then she suddenly drew herself up, rigid and tense, for the sound of heavy footsteps smote on her ear. Durkin heard them, too, in his languid and uncomprehending way; he also heard the authoritative knock that came from the hall door. He surmised that Frank had opened the splintered door, for in the dim sidelight of the hall he could see the flash of metal buttons on the dark blue uniform, and the outline of a patrolman’s cap. “Anything wrong up here, lady?” the officer was demanding, a little out of breath. “Dear me, no,” answered her voice in meek and plaintive alarm. Then she laughed a little. “She is lying—lying—lying,” thought the wounded man, languidly, as he lay there, bleeding in the darkened room, not twelve paces away from her, where the room was stained and blotched and pooled with blood. “H’m! Folks downstairs said they heard a pistol-shot up here somewhere!” “Yes, I know; that was the transom blew shut,” she answered glibly. “It nearly frightened the wits out of me, too!” She opened the door wide. “But won’t you come in, and make sure?” The officer looked up at the transom, wagged his head three times sagely, glanced at the lines of the girl’s figure with open and undisguised admiration, and said it wasn’t worth while. Then he tried to pierce the veil that still hung from her hat and about her smiling face. Then he turned and sauntered off down the stairs, tapping the baluster with his night-stick as he went. Then Durkin tried to struggle to his feet, was stung with a second fierce stab of pain, fell back drowsily, and remembered no more. Frances waited, pantingly, against the doorpost. She listened there for a second or two, and then crept inside and closed the door after her. “Thank God!” she gasped fervently, as she tore off her hat and veil once more. “Thank God!”