I had to cross the horse-paddock and the rails were up. They were heavy, I had only one arm, and bandaged as I was I could neither stoop freely, nor use my strength such as it was; for now I moved I found to my disgust that I was only half a man. I tried to shift the upper rail, but a pang that brought the sweat to my brow shot down my arm, and I desisted. The sun beat down upon me, the flies swarmed about my head, the din of the crickets filled my ears. I leant upon the rail, enraged at my helplessness but unable for the moment to do more.
I was in that position when she found me.
“You must come in,” she said. “Let me help you.” I suppose I looked ill for there was a tone in her voice that I had not heard before.
“I wish to go on,” I said pettishly, turning from her that she might not see my face. “I am going to your father.”
“You must come in,” she replied firmly. “The sun is too hot for you. You have never been as far as this.”
“But I—”
“You must do as I say,” she insisted. “Lean on me, if you please. Don’t you know that if you fell you might hurt yourself seriously?”
“I am only a little—giddy,” I said, clinging to the rail. “Which—I don’t seem to see—the way?”
I went back to the house on her arm—there was nothing else for it—but the only incident of the journey that I could recall was that at a certain place I stumbled, and she held me up. I tried to laugh. “A—a milksop! A weakling!” I said.
She did not answer.