The word dropped from Elaine's trembling lips with a wailing sound. Such a thing had never suggested itself to her mind. Probably had she had the usual training in the way of sensational novels, had she been accustomed to read of crimes and follow up the details of their detection with the zest of the true lover of late nineteenth-century romance, the idea of murder would have at once occurred to her, and she might have proceeded forthwith to search the long grass around for footprints, fragments of clothing, or a blood-spattered weapon. But she never once thought of the criminal, only of the victim. Neither did it dawn upon her that the mysterious danger which had lurked for the artist in that smiling landscape might lurk there also for her. She thought of nothing but him: that idea swallowed up and eclipsed all others.
Poor Allonby! Barely four hours ago he had rejoiced over the straightforward sincerity of the English summer. He had quoted with smiling satisfaction the words in which a French writer describes the Maremma:
"Cette Maremme fertile et meurtrière qui en deux années vous enrichit et vous tue."
Nothing less murderous could well be imagined than this peaceful Devonshire lane. Here were no ghastly exhalations, no venomous reptiles to glide through the long flowery grass: an Eden without the snake it seemed at first gaze, and yet some unseen malign power had exerted itself, and felled the lusty manhood of this young Englishman with a blow.
To Elaine, the sight was horror and agony untold; it acted physically on her nerves, and produced a dizzy faintness from which it took her several moments to recover. Feverishly she laid her hand on that of the young man, then on his brow, which was cold and rigid; she recoiled, filled with panic, from the touch, and leaped impulsively to her feet.
"Oh, help! Help! Will nobody help? Will nobody hear us if we call?"
"Oh, dear heart, he's bleeding under his coat here somewhere," cried Jane, holding out her hand, on which was something wet and glistening.
This sight robbed the girl of whatever nerve she might have possessed, and she recoiled with a gasp of terror.
"Stay with him," she cried, frantically, "I will run for help;" and, without waiting for reply, she started off to run at her topmost speed, feeling only that the one need of her soul at the moment was violent action, that something must be done at once.
The emergency, the first emergency of her life, had utterly scared away her wits.