Some instinct took her along the very path that he had followed. Some fear put her to speed. Her heart that he had silenced on Bracken Down and that never again she had permitted him to see, carried her to him. She ran with her skirts taken in her left hand, gipsy again in her free and tireless action, gipsy when at the summit of the Ridge instinct directed her without hesitancy to the right, gipsy when in the blackness she almost ran upon him and a second time revealed him what he was to her.
He cried, "Ima! Why are you here?" but carried his surprise no further.
"Percival, what has come to thee?"
"O Ima, leave me alone! leave me alone!"
"Ah, let me help thee!"
He cried, "None can—none can help me! Leave me! leave me!" Almost he struck her with his frantic arms that pressed her from him. She nothing cared, but caught them:
"Ah, suffer me to help thee. Look how I have come to thee. I healed thee once."
Her voice, and memories of her touch when he had lain sick, acted upon him. "Hold my hands, then. I must hold something. Hold them, hold them! O Ima, I am suffering, suffering!"
"That is why I am come. Your hands burn in mine and tremble."
"Kind Ima!" he said brokenly. "Kind Ima!" and put her hands to his face.