Gertrude smiled reassuringly, and, bending, kissed her fondly.
“Oh!” breathed the child, with a convulsive shudder, “was it a dreadful dream! Oh, Phil, did I fall?”
“Never mind the dream, Minnie, dear,” returned the young man evasively. “You are awake now, and we will go back to the hotel.”
“But I am so tired, and I feel so queer,” gasped the little one, settling back limp and white again in Gertrude’s arms.
“Give her to me!” said Philip, in a tone of alarm. “I will carry her to the hotel, and we must have a doctor immediately.”
He gathered her up tenderly, and hastened away, his whole thought centered upon her.
But Gertrude, keenly anxious for Clifford, lingered and went to the spot where he lay, with a pile of coats under his head for a pillow and weak as a child, his breath coming in great gasps. She knelt down beside him, an expression of deep reverence in her beautiful eyes.
“I hope you are better,” she said gently.
He looked up and smiled.
“Oh, yes; I shall soon—be—all right,” he panted, and she could see how his heart still throbbed and shook him from head to foot with its every pulsation. “Those—last few feet—were—rather more than—I—had calculated upon,” he added, after a moment.