“And does your head still pain you very much?” inquired the voice, while at the same moment I felt a cool hand placed upon my throbbing brow.

In an instant I seized it by the wrist. The hand tried to wrench itself free, but not before I had felt the slimness of the fingers, the rings upon them, and the softness of the palm.

It was a woman’s. She had cleverly disguised her voice to cause me to believe that it was a man’s. I placed my right hand upon her arm and felt it bare. Upon her wrist was a curious bracelet, thin but strangely pliable, evidently made of some ingeniously worked and twisted wire.

The arm was bare; her skirts were of silk. My nurse was evidently in an evening toilette.

“Although I cannot see you, madam, I thank you for your kind attention,” I said, a trifle piqued that she should have endeavoured to mislead me by her voice.

She drew her hand away quickly, with a slight cry, as though annoyed at my discovery.

“I witnessed your accident,” she explained simply, in a sweet, well-modulated voice, evidently her own. By her tone, she was no doubt young, and I wondered whether she were pretty.

“How did it happen? Tell me,” I urged.

“You were crossing the road, and were knocked down by a cab. My doctor has already examined you, and says that you are not seriously hurt. It is a mere scalp-wound, therefore you may rest content, and congratulate yourself upon a very narrow escape.”

“I congratulate myself upon failing into the hands of a friend,” I said.

“Oh, it is really nothing!” exclaimed my unknown hostess. “In a few hours you will, no doubt, be all right. Rest, and in the morning the carriage shall take you home.”

“Then it is not yet morning?” I inquired, vaguely wondering what hour it might be.

“No, not yet.”

The response sounded afar off, and I felt somehow that my strength was suddenly failing me. A heavy, drowsy feeling crept over me, and my mind seemed filled with conflicting thoughts, until I fell asleep, the cool, soft, sympathetic hand still upon my brow.

When I awoke it was with a refreshed feeling. No one was, however, in my immediate vicinity. My kind protectress had 

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