With darkening looks, and anger kindling in his resentful eyes, he endeavoured to push past her. He shook off her hold roughly, and made a clumsy movement forward, lurching against her heavily, with a force and suddenness which caused her to overbalance. She threw out a hand wildly to catch at the rail, missed it, and fell headlong down the stairs, landing with a crash upon the floor of the hall, where she lay, an inert and crumpled figure, with white upturned face showing deathlike in the artificial light. Hallam swayed forward dizzily and clutched at the rail and leaned against it heavily. "My God!" he muttered, and hid his eyes from the sight of the still white face. There came the sound of doors opening behind him. He pulled himself together quickly, and stumbled down the stairs, and knelt on the floor beside his wife. The frightened faces of the servants peered at him from the landing. He did not look up: he was stroking his wife's hand and speaking to her softly and weeping. His tears splashed upon her hand and upon his own hand; they fell warm and wet: something else warm and wet touched his hand. Abruptly he became aware of a dark stain under Esme's head; it oozed slowly, and spread darkly over the polished floor. She was bleeding. That had to be stopped anyway. The shock of the accident had sobered him; the cloud cleared away from his brain and he was able to think. Quickly he went to the telephone, hunted up a number and rang up the doctor. When he was satisfied that help would arrive speedily he returned to his post beside the unconscious figure of his wife, and slipped a pillow, which one of the servants fetched at his bidding, under her head. He moved her with infinite care. He would have lifted her and carried her upstairs, but he dared not trust himself with this task which in his sober moments he could have accomplished with the utmost ease. He sat beside her, holding her hand and crying uncontrollably, until the doctor arrived and took over the direction of affairs. Hallam, stricken with remorse, shaken, and dazed with grief, wandered aimlessly between his study and the landing, and stood outside the bedroom door, which he dared not open, waiting in a terrible suspense for information of his wife's condition. A nurse appeared upon the scene. He did not know how she came there; he did not know who admitted her. He heard the subdued noise of her arrival, and later met her on the stairs, a quiet-eyed, resourceful-looking woman, who watched him with interested curiosity as he passed her and went down and shut himself in his study once more. In the cold light of the dawn the house seemed alive with movement, the stealthy rustling of people coming and going on tiptoe, and the occasional murmur of voices speaking in undertones.