Then she groped with her fingers and touched the broken cord where the ring had hung. She had not dreamed it, then. Rupert had robbed her, and forsaken her. She did not cry, but she gave a little moan, and drooping forward, sank upon her face.
CHAPTER XXV
AFTER THE STORM
At first Merrylips could not guess what had happened to her. Perhaps, she thought, she had been drowned. Her face was all wet and dripping, and she could hear a rushing sound of water.
But when she raised her heavy eyelids, she saw bare willow branches against a gray sky. She lay by a brookside, she remembered. The sound of water that she had heard must be the rushing of the brook.
Then she found that Rupert was bending over her. But this was a Rupert whom she had never known. This Rupert had a gray, drawn face that twitched and eyes that were wide and frightened. He was chafing her hands in his and saying over and over:—
"Tibbott! Tibbott! Don't die! Prithee, say thou wilt not die! I did not know. I am sorry. Only don't die, Tibbott! Say thou wilt not die!"
She did not understand. She could remember only that he had struck her, and she shrank from his touch.
She heard a sound of sobbing. But she knew it was not she that cried. She had promised Munn that she would be brave. She raised her eyes again, and she saw Rupert on his knees beside her, with his ragged sleeve pressed to his face. It was he that was sobbing, for all that he was a big boy.
"But wilt thou not even let me touch thee—when 'tis to help thee?" he begged. "For I'm sorry, Tibbott. And here's thy ring again. As soon as I knew, I ran back and found thee fainting. And I would not ha' done it, Tibbott, but indeed they were very like. So I thought thou hadst taken mine, and—and it meaneth much to me, more than I can tell thee, Tibbott. And I thought, there at King's Slynton, when the rebels searched me, they would find it and take it from me. So many times since I've dreamed 'twas taken from me and was lost! So when I woke and thought to see it in thy hands, so careless, I was angered. Tibbott, wilt thou not understand and—and not forgive me, perhaps, but let me help thee? For indeed they are so like! Look but upon them, Tibbott!"