It was getting lighter—what a mercy that the night was past! Even in her sharp anxiety she had time for this bit of thankfulness. Then she paused, wondering whether she were running wide or going straight, for as yet she could see nothing but the unending stretch of brown earth, with the dim shadows of the springing wheat.
“Where are you?” she called, straining her eyes and her ears anew.
“I am here; you are coming straight,” answered the voice; but it was so exhausted, and so filled with anguish, that Bertha caught her breath in a sob, realizing that the trouble might be even worse than anything which she had feared.
On and on she ran, until it seemed to her that she had been running for hours, and she thought with dismay of the five sleeping babies which she had left in the little lonely house with the door wide open. But it could not be helped, and after all they might not wake.
Ah, there was Tom! She saw him now; he was staggering along under a burden which seemed to weigh him down.
He was carrying Grace! Then where were the horses?
But Bertha had no time for speculation just then, for just as she picked him out in the pale light she saw him lurch and stumble, try to recover himself, but failing, pitch forward on to the ground. Surely she had never run so fast before! She could hear herself panting as she sped along. But before she could reach him he was on his feet again and was gathering his wife up in his arms afresh.
“She isn’t dead, Bertha, she isn’t dead, for I heard her groan, poor dear, when I fell with her. I am afraid I must have hurt her dreadfully. But it is good to know that there is a little life left in her. For the last two hours I have thought she had really gone.”
The poor fellow was sobbing from sheer relief and thankfulness, but Bertha thrust him aside and tried to take Grace in her own arms.
“I am sure that I can carry her for a little way, just to let you get your breath,” she said, and at the first was more shocked by the awful haggard look on his face than she was by the white insensibility of Grace.