The next there came a loud report—a sound that violently rent her stretched nerves, shattering them as glass is shattered by a stone. She drooped without sound like a broken flower, and the young Frenchman gathered her up, just as he had done on the occasion of their first meeting at Valpré, and bore her away.
CHAPTER IV
GOOD-BYE TO CHILDHOOD
Out of the dreadful darkness Chris groped her halting way, saw light, and, shuddering, closed her eyes again. But at once a voice spoke to her, soothingly, tenderly, calling her back.
Reluctantly she responded, reluctantly she returned to full consciousness, and knew that she was lying fully dressed upon a couch in the drawing-room. But at sight of her husband's face bending above her she shuddered again—a painful, convulsive shudder that shook her from head to foot.
He laid a quiet hand on her head, but she shrank away. "Please,
Trevor"—she faltered—"please, I want to be alone."
"Yes, dear," he made gentle reply. "Just drink this first, and I will leave you."
But she withdrew herself almost violently; she buried her face deep in the cushion. "I can't! I can't! Please don't ask me to. I am quite all right. I only want—to be alone."
She was shaking all over as one with an ague, and her words were hardly articulate. He waited a little for her trembling to pass, but it only increased till her whole body seemed to twitch uncontrollably. At last with the utmost quietness he stooped and deliberately raised her.
"Chris, my dear little girl, you mustn't let yourself go like this. I want you to take this stuff to steady you. Afterwards you will have a sleep and be better."