"Why did you not ask me to get them for you?" he asks, rousing himself from his reverie: "how precipitate you always are! Take care, child: that bank is steep."
"But I am a sure-footed little deer," says Miss Chesney, with a saucy shake of her pretty head, and, as she speaks, jumps boldly forward.
A moment later, as she touches the ground, she staggers, her right ankle refuses to support her, she utters a slight groan, and sinks helplessly to the ground.
"You have hurt yourself," exclaims Cyril, kneeling beside her. "What is it, Lilian? Is it your foot?"
"I think so," faintly: "it seems twisted. I don't know how it happened, but it pains me terribly. Just there all the agony seems to rest. Ah!" as another dart of anguish shoots through the injured ankle.
"My dear girl, what shall I do for you? Why on earth did you not take my advice?" exclaims Cyril, in a distracted tone. A woman's grief, a woman's tears, always unman him.
"Don't say you told me how it would be," murmurs Lilian, with a ghastly attempt at a smile that dies away in another moan. "It would be adding insult to injury. No, do not stir me: do not; I cannot bear it. Oh, Cyril, I think my ankle is broken."
With this she grows a little paler, and draws her breath with a sharp sound, then whiter, whiter still, until at last her head sinks heavily upon Cyril's supporting arm, and he finds she has fallen into a deep swoon.
More frightened than he cares to allow, Cyril raises her in his arms and, without a moment's thought, conveys his slight burden straight to The Cottage.