"About a mile from here. Oh, good! The rain's stopped altogether. We have to cross the field to reach the road."
This they did, getting themselves wet nearly to the knees, for the meadow had become a swamp with the heavy rain, and the grass was very long. Grace was shivering and complaining of being cold before they had gone far on the road.
"Is it much farther?" she asked, when they had walked about half a mile.
"A good bit farther," Tom was obliged to admit.
"Then I'm afraid it's no good: I can't get there," the little girl said in a tone of despair. "You'd better go home and leave me."
"Not likely! To be found by the Sordellos! Here, take hold of my hand. You nearly fell then."
Grace obeyed, and for a few minutes the pair walked on in silence. But the little girl's footsteps lagged, and by and by, with a burst of tears, she came to a full stop.
"I can't—I can't go on!" she sobbed, and dropping Tom's hand, she sank down on the muddy road. "I feel so funny, so—" Her voice trailed off indistinctly.
"Oh, dear me whatever can I do?" exclaimed Tom, in dire dismay. "I don't like to leave you, but I suppose I must. I'd better hurry on to Hatwell Green and fetch Mrs. Lee. Do you hear, Grace? Why don't you speak?"
Grace did not answer, for the simple reason that she had fainted from exhaustion. She lay, a miserable little heap of humanity, right in the middle of the road, and Tom was at his wits' end how to act. To add to the difficulties of his position, it had commenced to rain again.