white gown, with a salver and a glass in her hand. "The room is ready,
Uncle Dick," she said, in a steady voice. "The blue room. Aunt Nancy
says you must make him take this cordial. I have lint and bandages all
ready. This way, Big Jim. Mind the wall!"

She turned and preceded the men up the stair, along a hallway and into a
pleasant chamber hung with blue and white. "Turn down the sheet, Mammy
Chloe," she directed a negro woman standing beside the bed. "Quick!
quick! he is bleeding so."

Rand was laid upon the bed, and as the men drew their arms from beneath
him, he moved his head, and his lips parted. A moment later he opened
his eyes. Colonel Dick heaved a sigh of relief. "He'll do now! Gilmer
shall come and bleed him, and he'll be out again before you can say Jack
Robinson! I'll have that place in the road mended to-morrow. Yes, yes,
Mr. Rand, you've had an accident. Lie still! you're with friends. Hey,
what did you say?"

Rand had said nothing articulate. His eyes were upon Jacqueline,
standing at the foot of the bed. The room was in the western wing of the
house, and where she stood she was bathed in the light of the sinking
sun. It made her brown hair golden and like a nimbus. Rand made a
straying motion with his hand. "I did not believe in heaven," he
muttered. "If I have erred--"

"Lie still, lie still!" said Jacqueline. In a moment she turned, left
the room, and went downstairs. "He is better," she told her cousin
Unity, who with Fairfax Cary was waiting in the lower hall; then went on
to the library, opened the door, and closed it softly behind her.