“But you are bleeding!” she exclaimed in a horrified tone.
She was joined by another woman, somewhat older, who was out of breath from running.
“Is she dead?” she cried.
“It will take more than this to kill me,” I declared, and moved to get up.
“No! no! Be still. We will carry you to our mistress,” they commanded.
Willingly I obeyed. One took hold of my shoulders, and the other of my feet, and they carried me to a small summer-house, in a grove of cypresses. A tall slender woman dressed in the green of the grass half rose from a couch.
“Is she hurt, Leila?” she asked, and it was as if I were a little bird fallen from its nest, so remote and impersonal was the interest manifested in her voice. If at the time I had been familiar with Maeterlinck, I should have thought that I was a minor actor in one of his unreal plays, and the lady in green the leading character.
“She’s bleeding, mistress.”
“Then you had better carry her into the house.”
She rose and preceded us. Her walk, like her speech, seemed remote from common earth, and to my half-closed eyes she seemed to float along, not to proceed step by step, as do common mortals.