Panting, fierce-eyed, ready to slay him again, Adam stood above the body for a moment, his jaws set, his fists clenched hard in the rage still upon him.
Then he heard a little moan, and turning about saw Garde, attempting to raise herself upward, in the road. He ran to her instantly and propped her up on his knee.
“Dearest, dearest,” he said, “are you badly hurt? Garde, let me help you. Don’t look—don’t look there. It’s all right. Here, let me get you back to the shade.”
He took her up tenderly in his arms and carried her out of the road to a near-by bank of moss. Here he sat her down, with her back to a tree, and ran to fill his hat with water from the stream.
The two horses, having stopped to take a supplementary drink, and a nibble at the grass, were easily caught. The rover secured them both and tied them quickly to a bush, with the dragging reins. Then back to Garde he ran with the water.
“Oh, thank you, dear,” she said, “I don’t think I am hurt. But with the fright, and the fall, I think I must have fainted.”
“Thank God!” said Adam, as she drank from his hat and smiled in his face, a little faintly, but with an infinite love in her two brown eyes. “Thank God, for this delivery. There will be no more trouble. I feel it! I know it. At last we have run the gauntlet.”