had been nursing her injured hand, with her eyes once more closed; but
her lips and lids quivered simultaneously. Her voice shook as she spoke.

"I can't help saying it, Paul, but you are so greatly changed."

"Hush, Elsie," he murmured soothingly; "you've had a shock; rest for a
while. How could I change?"

"I don't know, but you are. You've not been yourself ever since you came
here. I wish you'd never seen the place. It's stopped your work, it's
making you into a person I hardly know, and it's made me horribly anxious
about you.... Oh, how my hand is beginning to throb!"

"Poor child!" he murmured. "Will you let me take you to a doctor and have
it properly dressed?"

"No--I shall be all right presently--I'll keep it raised----"

She put her elbow on the back of her chair, and the bandaged hand rested
lightly on his shoulder.

At that touch an entirely new anxiety stirred suddenly within him.
Hundreds of times previously, on their jaunts and excursions, she had
slipped her hand within his arm as she might have slipped it into the arm
of a brother, and he had accepted the little affectionate gesture as a
brother might have accepted it. But now, for the first time, there rushed
into his mind a hundred startling questions. Her eyes were still closed,
and her head had fallen pathetically back; and there was a lost and
ineffable smile on her parted lips. The truth broke in upon him. Good
God!... And he had never divined it!