"Oh, there is so much to tell and to ask. What does it all mean, Hans? I am not much hurt. It is here," and she put her hand to her forehead, which was bleeding slightly. "I struck it against a stone when I tripped and fell, I think. And to think I was running from you, of all the world!"
I could not answer the tenderness of her tone or the love that breathed in every syllable of the words. If I had tried, the passion that was pent in me must have come rushing out. I sought to affect indifference, therefore; and though my fingers trembled as I touched her face, and my heart ached at the sight of the little wound, I dressed it in silence, and bound it up with my handkerchief.
She smiled to me several times as I did this, and when I had finished she murmured, lifting her eyes to mine:
"It will soon be well, now you have touched it, cousin." And she sighed. But the next instant she started, and a look of fear showed on her face. "I can hear the sounds of a horse at full gallop. I have been hearing nothing else in imagination for the last two hours; but this time it is real."
She spoke very wildly.
I listened intently, but could hear nothing.
"It is only imagination still," I replied. "And if it were real, it would mean nothing."
"Listen!" and she put up her finger and strained her ears.
She was right. She had caught the sound before me; but now I could distinguish the beat of hoofs in the far distance.
"I hear it now. Which way is the sound from?" I asked.