him and what had happened and why. Joan Daisy stood near and, listening, she wondered at his inevasive honesty in description of events exactly as they had occurred and his refraining from coloring them in the least either to excuse himself or claim for himself credit.
"Who was the bird she bumped?" Neski inquired of him, when he returned to the truck; and he answered, "The department hasn't heard yet."
Joan Daisy resumed her place on the floor of the truck, and Mr. Clarke and the patrolman sat opposite her. The report, which had been made, and the presence of the policeman seemed to Joan Daisy to relax the strain under which Calvin Clarke and she had drawn together and they became set-apart persons again. They approached a hospital and she saw Neski making timid experiments to reassure himself as to his injuries. Mr. Clarke spoke not at all to her and had words only for the policeman.
At the hospital Mr. Clarke accompanied Neski to the emergency room after seeing her in charge of a nurse.
"Make sure she's not hurt," he instructed the nurse, avoiding speech with Joan Daisy herself. "Take care of her."
In spite of his new tone, Joan Daisy was reminded of the night when he had given her to Mrs. Hoswick's care to be held for questioning. The nurse bathed her face and brushed her hair and advised her to lie down, as had Mrs. Hoswick; but Joan Daisy could rest no better upon this night than upon that. Her mind, then, had roved restlessly to Ket, accused and arrested for the murder of Adele; now it visited the emergency room, where she imagined Mr. Clarke under surgeon's hands.
The nurse brought a pot of tea, and Joan Daisy was sipping a cup when Mr. Clarke reappeared, and she saw his shoulder drooping and his arm as helpless as before. He had washed his face and brushed his hair, but had
