Just then an electric car came humming down Sansome Street. In an instant she was out on the track signaling for it to stop.
"If you pass a cab or a policeman, please send them down here!" she commanded. "This gentleman has met with an accident and we must have help to take him home."
The conductor nodded, staring at her, as she stood in her disheveled finery, splendidly bold in the moonlight, like a dismounted Valkyr. The car plowed on and left them. Calmly she stripped off her slashed gloves and repaired the disorder of her hair. A long double necklace of pearls caught the moonlight, and in the front breadth of her gown, a rent showed a pale blue silken skirt beneath. Granthope, bedraggled and smeared with blood and dust, was as grotesque a figure. The humor of the picture struck them at once, and they burst into laughter.
Then, "How did you know?" he said.
She became serious immediately. "It was very strange. I was at a reception with Mr. Cayley. I happened to be sitting on a couch by myself, when—I don't know how to describe the sensation—but I saw you, or felt you, lying somewhere, on your back. I was so frightened I didn't know what to do. I knew something had happened, yet I didn't know where to find you. I gave it up and tried to forget about it, but I couldn't—it was like a steady pain—then I knew I had to come. It seemed so foolish and vague that I didn't want to ask Mr. Cayley to go on such a wild-goose chase with me. Father understands me better and if he'd been there I would have brought him along. So I slipped out alone, put on my things and took a car down-town. I seemed to know by instinct where to get off—you should have seen the way the conductors stared at me!—and I turned right down this way, trusting to my intuitions. I seemed to be led directly to the foot of the cliff here where I first called you."
"Yes, you called 'Francis,' didn't you?" he said, looking up at her in wonder.
"Did I? I don't know what I said—if I did it was as instinctively done as all the rest. We'll have to go into business together." Her laugh was nervous and excited.
He frowned. "Miss Payson, I don't know how to thank you—it was a splendid thing to do."
"Oh, it has been a real adventure—almost my first. But it's not over yet. I must take you home now. What a sight I am! You, too! Wait—let me clean you off a little."
She stooped over him and, with a lace handkerchief, lightly brushed his face free of the dust, wiped the blood away, then, with gentle fingers, smoothed his black hair. Both trembled slightly at the contact. She stopped, embarrassed at her own boldness, then stood more constrained and self-conscious, till the rattling wheels of a carriage were heard. A hack came clattering up over the cobble-stones and drew up at the curb. The driver jumped down from his seat.