Gradually I was aware of somebody moistening my temples. A soft palm held my hand. Elsie was leaning over me. I opened my eyes with a start.

“Oh, Elsie,” I cried, “how kind of you!”

It seemed to me quite natural to call her Elsie.

Even as I spoke, somebody else raised my head and poured something down my throat. I swallowed it with a gulp. Then I opened my eyes again.

“And Jack, too,” I murmured.

It seemed as if he’d been “Jack” to me for years and years already.

“She knows us!” Elsie cried, clasping her hands. “She’s much better—much better. Quick, Jack, more brandy! And make haste there—a stretcher!”

There was a noise close by. Unseen hands lifted me up, and Jack laid me on the stretcher. Half-an-hour at least must have elapsed, I felt since the first shock of the accident. I had been unconscious meanwhile. The actual crash came and went like lightning. And my memory of all else was blotted out for the moment.

Next, as I lay still, two men took the stretcher and carried me off at a slow pace, under Jack’s direction. They walked single-file along the line, and turned down a rough road that led off near a river. I didn’t ask where they were going: I was too weak and feeble. At last they came to a house, a small white wooden cottage, very colonial and simple, but neat and pretty. There was a garden in front, full of old-fashioned flowering shrubs; and a verandah ran round the house, about whose posts clambered sweet English creepers.

They carried me in, and laid me down on a bed, in a sweet little room, very plain but dainty. It was panelled with polished pitchpine, and roses peeped in at the open window. Everything about the cottage bore the impress of native good taste. I knew it was Jack’s home. It was just such a room as I should have expected from Elsie.

The bed on which they placed me was neat and soft. I lay there dozing with pain. Elsie sat by my side, her own arm in a sling. By-and-by, an Irish maid came in and undressed me carefully under Elsie’s direction. Then Elsie said to me, half shrinking:

“Now you must see the doctor.”

“Not Dr. Ivor!” I cried, waking up to a full sense of this new threatened horror. “Whatever I do, dear, I WON’T see Dr. Ivor!”

Jack had come in while she spoke, and was standing by the bed, I saw now. The servant had gone out. He lifted my arm, and held my wrist in his hand.

“I’m a doctor myself, Miss Callingham,” he said softly, with that quiet, reassuring voice of his. “Don’t be alarmed at that; nobody but myself and Elsie need come near you in any way.”

I smiled at his words, well pleased.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re a doctor!” I cried, much relieved at the news; “for I’m not the least little bit in the world afraid of YOU. I don’t mind your attending me. I like to have you with me.” For I had always a great fancy for doctors, somehow.

“That’s well,” he said, smiling at me such a sweet sympathetic smile as he felt my pulse with his finger. “Confidence is the first great requisite in a patient: it’s half the battle. You’re not seriously hurt, I hope, but you’re very much shaken. Whether you like it or not, you’ll have to stop here now for some days at least, till you’re thoroughly recovered.”

I’m ashamed to write it down; but I was really pleased to hear it. Nothing would have induced me to go voluntarily to their house with the intention of stopping there—for they were friends of Dr. Ivor’s. But when you’re carried on a stretcher to the nearest convenient house, you’re not responsible for your own actions. And they were both so nice and kind, it was a pleasure to be near them. So I was almost thankful for that horrid accident, which had cut the Gordian knot of my perplexity as to a house to lodge in.

It was a fortnight before I was well enough to get out of bed and lie comfortably on the sofa. All that time Jack and Elsie tended me with unsparing devotion. Elsie had a little bed made up in my room; and Jack came to see me two or three times a day, and sat for whole hours with me. It was so nice he was a doctor! A doctor, you know, isn’t a man—in some ways. And it soothed me so to have him sitting there with Elsie by my bedside.

They were “Jack” and “Elsie” to me, to their faces, before three days were out; and I was plain “Una” to them: it sounded so sweet and sisterly. Elsie slipped it out the second morning as naturally as could be.

“Una’d like a cup of tea, Jack;” then as red as fire all at once, she corrected herself, and added, “I mean, Miss Callingham.”

“Oh, do call me Una............