"Stop!" he said. "At any rate, I can find a cow—bullock—steer. Let me go. You wait here."
He rode off as he spoke, and she pulled up the big chestnut and looked after him. Once more the question rose to perplex her: why had he come, why was he riding about the dale with her, counting sheep, wading in the stream, lifting weir stones, and herding cattle? It seemed to be so strange, so inexplicable. And as she followed him with her eyes, his grace and strength were impressed upon her, and she dwelt upon them dreamily. Were there many such men in the world of which she knew so little, or was he one alone, and unique? And how good, how pleasant it was to have him with her, to talk to her, to help her! She had often longed for a brother, and had pictured one like this, strong and handsome, with frank eyes and smiling lips—someone upon whom she could lean, to whom she could go when she was in trouble.
A shout awoke her from her reverie; and looking up she saw the missing steer forcing its way through a hedge on top of a bank. Stafford was riding after it at an easy canter and coming straight for the bank. The steer plunged through the hedge and floundered through the wide ditch, and Ida headed it and drove it towards the rest of the herd. Then she turned in her saddle to warn Stafford of the ditch; but as she turned he was close upon the bank, and she saw the big hunter rise for the leap.
A doubt as to how he would land rose in her mind, and she swung Rupert round; and as she did so, she saw the hunter crash through the hedge, stumble at the ditch, and fall, lurching forward, on its edge.
No man alive could have kept his seat, and Stafford came off like a stone thrown from a catapult, and lay, face downwards, in the long, wet grass.
Something like a hot iron shot through Ida's heart, and sent her face white, and she rode up to him and flung herself from Rupert and knelt beside the prostrate form.
He lay quite still; and she knew quite well what had happened: that he had fallen on his head and stunned himself.
She remembered, at that moment, that she herself had once so fallen; but the remembrance did nothing to soften her present anxiety. She knelt beside him and lifted his head on her knee, and his white face smote her accusingly. He was still, motionless so long that she began to fear—was he dead? She asked herself the question with a heavy pulsation of the heart, with a sense of irrevocable loss. If he was dead, then—then—what had she lost!
Trembling in every limb, she laid her hand upon his heart. It beat, but slowly, reluctantly. She looked round her with a sense of helplessness. She had never been placed in such a position before. Not far from her was a mountain rill, and she ran to it with unsteady steps and soaked her handkerchief in it, and bathed the white, smooth forehead.
Even at that moment she noticed, half unconsciously, the clear-cut, patrician features, the delicate lines of the handsome face.