And while Stella is putting the huge patent-leather shoe on her bandaged foot, Rohritz directs the peasant-lad to fish his plaid and rugs out of the mud and to lead the horses slowly to the inn. As he walks away with Stella they hear the boy's loud drawling 'Hey!' 'Get up,' with which he seeks to inspirit the miserable brutes.
Leaning on the arm of her escort, Stella does her best to proceed without yielding to the pain which every minute increases, but her movements grow slower and more laboured, and finally a low moan escapes her lips.
"Let me rest just one moment," she entreats, piteously, ashamed of a helplessness of which a normally constituted woman would have made capital.
"Do not walk any farther," he rejoins, and, bending over her, he says, with decision, "I pray you put your right arm around my neck, clasp it well: treat me absolutely as a porte-faix."
"But, Baron----"
"Do not oppose me, I entreat: at present I am in command." His tone is very kind, but also very authoritative.
She obeys, half mechanically. He carries her firmly and securely, without stumbling, without betraying the slightest fatigue. At first her sensations are distressing; then slowly, gradually, a pleasant sense of being shielded and cared for overcomes her: her thoughts stray far, far into the past,--back to the time when her father hid her against his breast beneath his cavalry cloak, and she looked out between its folds from the warm darkness upon the world outside. The minutes fly.
"We are here!" Rohritz says, very hoarsely.
She looks up. A reddish light is streaming out into the darkness from the windows of a low, clumsy building. He puts her down on the threshold of the inn.
"Thanks!" she murmurs, without looking at him. He is silent.