“Mule!” she said, furiously, instead of “Fore!” and put that fury into her swing. Nevertheless, the ball sped true in direction, though in the thickened air it sped invisibly and would far have overshot the mark if nothing had stopped it. Straight to the short dark hair on the back of the languid player’s head the little white ball flew with fiercest precision, and being hard, and on its way to a place much farther on, it straightway rendered him more languid than ever. He dropped without a moan. XXVII MIRACULOUS ACCIDENT “OH, MURDER!” Lily gasped, not greatly exaggerating when she used that word. She stood gazing toward him miserably, waiting for him to rise; and then, as the stricken player’s inertia remained complete, she ran forward, screaming to the caddy, who was disappearing toward the clubhouse. He came back, and together they turned the prone figure over so that it lay upon its back, revealing an interesting young face of a disquieting pallor. “I guess you must of killed him _this_ time,” the caddy said, unreasonably, and then seemed to wish to solace the assassin, for he added: “He ain’t a member though.” Lily was already on the ground beside her victim, rubbing his hands. “Run!” she cried. “Get a doctor! Run!” She failed to recognize the fallen player, and so did the steward and three waiters from the clubhouse, which was just then vacant of members. James Herbert McArdle’s features were not so well known as those of the President of the United States, nor, probably, as those of the more conspicuous actors in moving pictures;—nevertheless, his face was familiar to those who now sought to identify it; and as they worked to restore the expression of life to it they were aware of elusive clews. The steward said he was sure he knew the gentleman, who must often have been about the club, though he couldn’t quite place him. The waiters had the same impression and the same disability precisely, while the trembling Lily herself was troubled by stirrings of memory. Either she had once known her victim, she thought, or else he was like someone she knew; but a white face inanimate, upturned to the evening sky, is strange even to those who know it most intimately. The likeness remained evasive, and the prostrate young man both unconscious and unidentified. Lily was relieved of her first horror;—at least he was not dead. On the other hand, certainly he was not well. And when she drove that ball she had hated him. Of course she had not intended this dolorous stroke, yet when she made it, had she really cared whether or not it laid him low? She had not—and now regret shook her. Perhaps she would have felt it less profoundly had the maddening player proved indeed to be Captain Williams; but with the lifeless head of this well-favoured and unoffending stranger upon her lap, her remorse was an anguish.