Seeing, yet scarcely noting all this, I flung myself on my knees beside her, and found that one hand and arm lay imprisoned under the bookcase.  She was not insensible, but pain had deprived her of the power of speech.  I raised her head tenderly, and supported it against a chair; then lifted the heavy bookcase, and, one by one, removed the volumes that had fallen upon her.

Alas! the white little hand all crushed and bleeding—­the powerless arm—­the brave mouth striving to be firm!

I took the poor maimed arm, made a temporary sling for it with my cravat, and, taking her up in my arms as if she had been an infant, carried her to the sofa.  Then I closed the window; ran back to my own room for hot water; tore up some old handkerchiefs for bandages; and so dressed and bound her wounds—­blessing (for the first time in my life) the destiny that had made me a surgeon.

“Are you in much pain?” I asked, when all was done.

“Not now—­but I feel very faint,”

I remembered my coffee in the next room, and brought it to her.  I lifted her head, and supported her with my arm while she drank it.

“You are much better now,” I said, when she had again lain down.  “Tell me how it happened.”

She smiled languidly.

“It was not my fault,” she said, “but Froissart’s.  Do you remember that Froissart?”

Remember it!  I should think so.

“Froissart!” I exclaimed.  “Why, what had he to do with it?”

“Only this.  I usually kept him on the top of the bookcase that fell down this evening.  Just now, while preparing for a journey upon which I must start to-morrow morning, I thought to remove the book to a safer place; and so, instead of standing on a chair, I tried to reach up, and, reaching up, disturbed the balance of the bookcase, and brought it down.”

“Could you not have got out of the way when you saw it falling?”

“Yes—­but I tried to prevent it, and so was knocked down and imprisoned as you found me.”

“Merciful Heaven! it might have killed you.”

“That was what flashed across my mind when I saw it coming,” she replied, with a faint smile.

“You spoke of a journey,” I said presently, turning my face away lest she should read its story too plainly; “but now, of course, you must not move for a few days.”

“I must travel to-morrow,” she said, with quiet decision.

“Impossible!”

“I have no alternative.”

“But think of the danger—­the imprudence—­the suffering.”

“Danger there cannot be,” she replied, with a touch of impatience in her voice.  “Imprudent it may possibly be; but of that I have no time to think.  And as for the suffering, that concerns myself alone.  There are mental pains harder to bear than the pains of the body, and the consciousness of a duty unfulfilled is one of the keenest of them.  You urge in vain; I must go.  And now, since it is time you bade me good-night, let me thank you for your ready help and say good-bye.”