“Bertha, there was an accident then, and he was hurt! Is he still alive, oh, tell me, quick, quick?” she panted, her eyes moving with an expression of the keenest distress; but she did not lift a finger or attempt to move herself in any way.
Bertha stooped over her and gently stroked her face. “He is not hurt at all, dear, only he is very, very tired, for he brought you home in his arms. It took hours; he was fearfully exhausted, and the doctor said that we were not to wake him on any account.”
“The doctor? Then he is hurt? Oh, Bertha, Bertha, it is cruel, cruel to tell me falsehoods even in kindness!” exclaimed Grace, and there was such a pathos in her voice that Bertha shrank back affrighted, looking at Eunice for help.
The little woman stepped forward out of the shadows and gently thrust Bertha to one side.
“She is quite right, Mrs. Ellis, your husband was not hurt. It was you that were thrown, pitched on to your head, and it has made you dazed for a time. Mr. Ellis had to carry you so far that he was really knocked up, though I think it was his worry on your account that upset him as much as anything.”
“Why, it is Miss Long!” said Grace, in great surprise.
“Yes, I came over when I heard that you had had a fall. Bertha is not very much used to sickness, you see, and I knew that you would come to me if I were bad and needed you. Now, suppose you take this stuff the doctor left for you and then try to sleep, you will feel better when you wake again,” said Eunice, a kind of mesmeric soothing in her voice, as she held the medicine to the lips of Grace.
“I can’t move, and I can’t feel what is the matter with me. Shall I be better when I wake?” asked Grace, with such a look of terror in her face, that Eunice swallowed a sob and kept her voice steady with a great difficulty.
“You will be stronger when you wake. Go to sleep now, dear, go to sleep,” said the little woman gently, and then, under the influence of the medicine, which was a sleeping draught, Grace was speedily unconscious again.
“Her brain is all right, thank God!” said Eunice, in a low moved tone, as the two stood looking at the quiet figure in her deep slumber.