With a little cry of alarm Hilda was off her horse in a moment and was beside him. She raised his head, laying a hand upon the damp and clammy brow.
“There, there! Do you feel better now?” she exclaimed, with a rush of tenderness in her tone.
“What an idiot I am,” he answered, but the smile was a sickly one as he tried to raise himself. “I shall be all right in a minute. Heavens! the horse! Hilda—quick—go after the silly brute. It would never do to lose it.”
In her anxiety to reach his side, Hilda had let the reins go, and now the animal was walking steadily off. She tried to coax it, but the result only seemed to be to accelerate its pace. She was quite a little way off now. Raynier had staggered to his feet, and had managed to take a few steps after her. Then he sank down in a dead faint.
The horse stopped. Now she would have it. Speaking soothingly, Hilda drew near. She had all but got her hand on the bridle rein, when the perverse brute slewed round. This manoeuvre he repeated three or four times and then resumed his stroll. After him again she went.
No—it was too bad. She would try no further. She must have come quite far already, but how far? She stopped and looked back. Great Heaven! what was this? The cloud which had encompassed the hilltop had extended, stealing silently and insidiously downward, blotting out the whole mountain side, blotting out the way she had come, blotting out everything save three or four yards of slimy wet ground immediately around her. How would she find her way back to where she had left her companion, and—what if she could not?