He had lain there in the haw-haw, unconscious all that day, while his poor little lady-love waited for him at the oak gate, and was now in a sorry plight indeed, as Arabella Clinker bent over him, awaiting anxiously the verdict of the doctors who had been fetched by motor from Upminster.

Would he live or die?
Her employer had had a bad attack of nerves upon hearing of the accident, and was now reclining upon her boudoir sofa, quite prostrated and in a high state of agitation until she should know the worst--or best.
Arabella listened intently.

Surely the patient was whispering something?
Yes, she caught the words.
"Halcyone!" he murmured, and again, "Halcyone--my love!" and then he closed his eyes once more.
He would live, the physicians said after some hours of doubt--with very careful nursing.

But the long exposure in the wet, twenty-four hours at least, with that wound in the head and the broken ankle, was a very serious matter, and absolute quiet and the most highly skilled attention would be necessary.
It was Arabella who made all the sensible, kind arrangements that night, and herself sat up with the poor suffering patient until the nurses could come.

But it was Mrs.Cricklander who, dignified and composed, received the doctors after the consultation with Sir Benjamin Grant next day, before the celebrated surgeon left for London, and she made her usual good impression upon the great man.
That the local lights thought far more highly of Arabella did not matter.