"Thank God!" he says, hardly above his breath, and more devoutly than he is in the habit of saying his prayers. "When I saw you there, lying all shapeless, I half thought—Oh!" (with a shudder) "I don't know what I thought."
"I must be tied on next time, mustn't I?" says Essie, putting up her hand to her head with an uncertain movement, as if she were not quite sure of finding it there. "Oh! Mr. Gerard,"—the colour coming back faintly to her lips and cheeks—"I do hate riding! it's horribly dangerous! quite as bad as a battle!"
"Quite!" acquiesces St. John, laughing heartily in his intense relief. "And you are quite sure you are not hurt?"
"Quite!"
"Really?"
"Really!"
To prove how perfectly intact she is, she jumps up; but, as she does so, her face grows slightly distorted with a look of pain, and she sinks back on her buttercup bed.
"Not quite sure, either; I seem to have done something stupid to my foot—turned it or twisted it."
So saying, she thrusts out from under her habit a small foot. It is a small—a very small—foot; but the boot in which it is cased is country made, and about three times too big for it; so that it might rattle in it, like a pea in a drum. Even at this affecting moment St. John cannot repress a slight feeling of disappointment.
"I'm awfully sorry! Whereabouts does it hurt? There?" putting his fingers gently on the slender, rounded ankle.