But she was not dead. He realized it when he bent over her and took her pulse. It was reasonably strong. The injury was obviously a concussion, for her hat lay beside her, crushed and torn off by the fall. Her breathing, though hardly normal, was not alarming, and it seemed to be growing deeper and more peaceful even as he watched. There were indications that she would come to presently. After all, it was only such an accident as claims its daily victim in the hunting countries. It was nothing to be alarmed about. As the strain relaxed, he became aware of its tensity. He was limp now, and shaking like a leaf, and then the question put itself to him, Was this because he had found a woman that he believed dead or because that woman was Sally Rivers? There was only one honest answer. He made it, and in his inner heart he was glad.
She was not dead. He realized it when he bent over her
Nevertheless, he still protested that it was absurd, that the affair was over. Even if there were no Wynford, he knew that she would never change her mind; and, then, there was Wynford. Even now he was sitting beside her only because her eyes were sightless, because she herself was away. When she came back, it would be trespass to remain. He was in another’s place. It was Wynford who ought to have found her.
If he could have stolen away he would have done so. But that being impossible, he fell to watching her as if she were not herself, but a room that she had once lived in—a room that he too had known, that was delightful with associations and fragrant with faint memory-stirring perfumes. And yet, though the tenant seemed to be away, was it not after all her very self that was before him? There was the treasure of her brown hair, with the gold light in it, tumbled in heaps about her head; there was the face that had been for him the loveliness of early morning in gardens, that had haunted him in the summer perfume of clover-fields and in the fragrance of night-wrapped lawns. There was the slim, rounded figure that once had brought the blood into his face as it brushed against him. There were the hands whose touch was so smooth and cool and strong. Presently he found himself wiping the mud from her cheek as if he were enacting a ritual over some holy thing. He looked around. No human being was in sight. The afternoon sun shone mildly. In the hedgerow some little birds twittered pleasantly, and sang their private little songs.
Suddenly she opened her eyes. She looked up at him, knew him, and smiled.
“Hello, Carty,” she said in her low, vibrant tones. A thrill ran through him. It was the way it used to be.
“You’ve had a bad fall,” he said. “How do you feel?”
A little laugh came into her eyes. “How do I look?” she murmured.