"I will," said Dick, subdued and earnest. "I couldn't help doing it—your arm—"
Lestrange impatiently dragged out his handkerchief and wound it around the cut.
"I can't help keeping on; I couldn't go back now. You've got me awake. No one else ever tried, and I was having a good time. It began with liking you and thinking of all you did, and feeling funny alongside of you." He paused, struggling with Anglo-Saxon shyness. "I'm awfully fond of you, old fellow."
The other's gray eyes warmed and cleared. Smiling, he held out his left hand.
"It's mutual," he assured. "It isn't playing the game to trap you while you are upset like this. But I don't believe you'll be sorry. Come find some one to tie this up for me; I can't have it stiff to-morrow."
But in spite of his professed haste, Lestrange stopped at the head of the stairs and went back to recover some small object lying on the floor beneath a pool of chilling metal. When he rejoined Dick, it was to linger yet a moment to look back across the teeming room.
"It's worth having, all this," he commented, with the first touch of sadness the other ever had seen in him. "Don't throw it away, Ffrench."
There is usually a surgeon within reach of a factory. When Mr. Ffrench passed out to the cart where Emily waited, he passed Dick and the village physician entering. The elder gentleman put on his glasses to survey his nephew's white face.
"An accident?" he inquired.