"There is still a chance, then?"
"Well—you know the formula, 'while there's life there's hope.' With the best of care, and nursing, and medical aid, there may be one chance in a hundred for him. With hospital care and attendance, there's not a shadow."
Then for the space of five seconds a pause fell. The city street, the gaping, curious crowd around her faded away, and there arose before Norine a far different and never-to-be-forgotten picture—a desolate autumn evening; a gray, complaining sea, creeping up on its gray sands, a low, fast-drifting sky lying over it, and on the shore a girl standing, reading a few brief lines in Laurence Thorndyke's writing—lines that branded her as a thing of sin and shame for life—that broke her heart as she read. And now—her enemy lay here at her mercy. Why should she lift a finger to save him? Why not let him go to the hospital and take his chance? All that man can do to ruin a woman, body and soul, he had done—why should she lift a finger to save him now?
She thought all this in a moment of time. The tempter stood at her side and rekindled all the pain, and hatred and horror of him. Then her eyes fell upon the crushed, bleeding, senseless form at her feet, and she turned from the dark thoughts within her with horror of herself.
"Well, madam?" the voice of the medical man said, a little impatiently, "how is it to be? You evidently know this unfortunate young man—shall he be removed to the hospital, or—"
"To my house!" She rose suddenly, her self possession returning. "And I must beg of you to accompany him there. No efforts must be spared to restore him. Carry him to the carriage at once."
Men came forward, and the insensible figure was gently lifted, carried to the carriage, and laid upon the cushions.
Norine entered, and took his head in her lap. The doctor followed.
"Home!" she said to the coachman, and they drove slowly back, through the busy streets, to the quiet, red-brick mansion that for years had been Laurence Thorndyke's home.
"How should she tell Helen?" All the way that thought filled Norine.