I found her sitting on the floor, with her body bent forward and her head resting against the corner of a fallen bookcase. The scattered volumes lay all about. A half-filled portmanteau stood close by on a chair. A travelling-cloak and a passport-case lay on the table.
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?"