He spoke to the cob, who understood every word and touch of his master, and jolted down the steep road, and Nell followed slowly. She was rather pale, as he had noticed, but she was not frightened. In all her uneventful life nothing so exciting, so disturbing had happened as this accident. It was difficult to realize it, to realize that a great strong man had been cast helpless at her feet, that she had had his head on her lap; she looked down at the patch on her dress and shuddered. Was she glad or sorry that she had chanced to be near when he fell? As she asked herself the question her conscience smote her. What a question to arise in her mind! Of course she should be glad, very glad, to have been able to help him. Then the man's face rose before her, and appealed to her by its whiteness, by the weary, wistful lines about the lips and eyes. "I wonder who he is?" she asked herself, conscious that she had never seen any one like him, that he was in some way different to any one of the men she had hitherto met. As she walked slowly, thoughtfully down the road, a strange feeling came upon her; it was as if she had touched, if only with the finger tips, the fringe of the great unknown world. The doctor, breaking away from the lengthy recountal of Mrs. Lorton, went upstairs to the spare room, where still sat Mr. Drake Vernon on the edge of the bed, very white, but very self-contained. "How do you do, doctor?" he said quietly. "I've come a cropper and knocked my head and broken some of my bones. If you'll be so good----" "Take off your coat. My good sir, why didn't you let them help you to undress?" broke in the old man, with the curtness of the country doctor, who, as a rule, is no respecter of persons. "I've given these good people trouble enough already," was the reply. "Thanks; no, you don't hurt me--not more than can be helped. And I'm not going to faint. Thanks, thanks." He got undressed and into bed, and the doctor "went over" him. As he got to the injured arm, Mr. Vernon drew his signet ring from his finger and slipped it in his pocket. "Rather nasty knock on the head; broken arm--compound fracture, unfortunately." "Oh! just patch me up so that I can get away at once, will you?" The old man shook his head. "Sorry, Mr. Vernon; but that is rather too large an order. Frankly, you have knocked yourself about rather more seriously than you think. The head----And you are not a particularly 'good patient,' I'm afraid. Been living rather--rapidly, eh?" Vernon nodded. "I've been living all the time," was the grim assent. "I thought so. And you pay the usual penalty. Nature is inexorable, and never lets a man off with the option of a fine. If one of my fishermen had injured himself as you have done, I could let him do what he pleased; but you will have to remain here, in this room--or, at any rate, in this house--for some little time."