The old woman had somehow saved herself--or perhaps her saint had helped
her--for she was sitting in the grass by the roadside, wailing
hysterically and quite unhurt. The body of a man lay in a heap beneath
the stone archway, and from his clothes I guessed that he had been the
driver of the white car. I say "had been" because there were reasons for
needing no second glance to comprehend that the man was dead.
Nevertheless, I knelt beside him and placed my hand upon his breast to
see if his heart still beat. Afterward I concluded that I did this
because I had seen it done upon the stage, or had read of it in stories;
and even at the time I realised that it was a silly thing for me to be
doing.

Ward, meanwhile, proved more practical. He was dragging a woman out of
the suffocating smoke and dust that shrouded the wreck, and after a
moment I went to help him carry her into the fresh air, where George put
his coat under her head. Her hat had been forced forward over her face
and held there by the twisting of a system of veils she wore; and we had
some difficulty in unravelling this; but she was very much alive, as a
series of muffled imprecations testified, leading us to conclude that
her sufferings were more profoundly of rage than of pain. Finally she
pushed our hands angrily aside and completed the untanglement herself,
revealing the scratched and smeared face of Mariana, the dancer.

"Cornichon! Chameau! Fond du bain!" she gasped, tears of anger starting
from her eyes. She tried to rise before we could help her, but dropped
back with a scream.

"Oh, the pain!" she cried. "That imbecile! If he has let me break my
leg! A pretty dancer I should be! I hope he is killed."