When she recovered herself he was snorting rather than breathing, but lying still and pale enough, his eyes set and glassy.
She got up, and went with uneven steps to a little rill hard by, and plunged her face in it: then filled her beaver hat, and came and dashed water repeatedly in his face.
He came to his senses by degrees; but was weak as an infant. Then Ryder wiped the foam from his lips, and kneeling on her knees, laid a soft hand upon his heavy head, shedding tears of pity and remorse, and sick at heart herself.
For what had she gained by blackening her rival? The sight of his bodily agony, and his ineradicable love.
Mrs. Gaunt sat out of shot, cold, calm, superior.
Yet, in the desperation of her passion, it was something to nurse his "weak head an instant and shed hot tears upon his brow; it was a positive joy, and soon proved a fresh and inevitable temptation.
"My poor master," said she, tenderly, "I never will say a word to you again. It is better to be blind. My God! how you cling to her that feigns a broken back to be rid of you, when there are others as well to look at, and ever so much younger, that adore every hair on your head, and would follow you round the world for one kind look."
"Let no one love me like that," said Griffith, feebly, "to love so, is to be miserable."
"Pity her then, at least," murmured Ryder; and, feeling she had quite committed herself now, her bosom panted under Griffith's ear, and told him the secret she had kept till now.
My female readers will sneer at this temptation: my male readers know that scarcely one man out of a dozen, sick, sore, and hating her he loved, would have turned away from the illicit consolation thus offered to him in his hour of weakness with soft seducing tones, warm tears, and heart that panted at his ear.