"The rushes! I'll tell you where to find some."
Helen thought the best thing was to temporize. Perhaps he would be better after eating some wholesome food. "I'll fetch them directly after dinner," said she. "But it will be spoiled if I leave it for long; and I do so want it to be nice for you to-day."
"Dinner?" cried Hazel. "What do I care for dinner now? I am solving my problem. I'd rather go without dinner for years than interrupt a great idea. Pray let dinner take its chance, and obey me for once."
"For once!" said Helen, and turned her mild hazel eyes on him with such a look of gentle reproach.
"Forgive me! But don't take me for a child, asking you for a toy; I'm a poor crippled inventor, who sees daylight at last. Oh, I am on fire; and, if you want me not to go into a fever, why, get me my rushes."
"Where shall I find them?" said Helen, catching fire at him.
"Go to where your old hut stood, and follow the river about a furlong. You will find a bed of high rushes. Cut me a good bundle, cut them below the water, choose the stoutest. Here is a pair of shears I found in the ship."
She took the shears and went swiftly across the sands and up the slope. He watched her with an admiring eye; and well he might, for it was the very poetry of motion. Hazel in his hours of health had almost given up walking; he ran from point to point, without fatigue or shortness of breath. Helen, equally pressed for time, did not run; but she went almost as fast. By rising with the dawn, by three meals a day of animal food, by constant work, and heavenly air, she was in a condition women rarely attain to. She was trained. Ten miles was no more to her than ten yards. And, when she was in a hurry, she got over the ground by a grand but feminine motion not easy to describe. It was a series of smooth undulations, not vulgar strides, but swift rushes, in which the loins seemed to propel the whole body, and the feet scarcely to touch the ground. It was the vigor and freedom of a savage, with the grace of a lady.
And so it was she swept across the sands and up the slope,
"Et vera incessu patuit Dea."