And, as she lay there, her husband made a sponge of a handful of sphagnum moss, and bathed her face and her arms, cleansing the dried blood from the skin, while the girl looked up at him out of grave, inscrutable eyes.
The sun hung low over the wilderness when they came to the woods of Fool’s Acre. They crept cautiously out of the briers, among ferns and open spots carpeted with pine needles and dead leaves which were beginning to burn ruddy gold under the level rays of the sun.
Lying flat behind an enormous oak, they remained listening for a while. Selden pointed through the woods, eastward, whispering that the house stood there not far away.
“Don’t you think we might risk the chance and use our rifles?” asked Cleves in a low voice.
“No. It is the Tchor-Dagh that confronts us. I wish to talk to Sansa,” she murmured.
A moment later Selden touched her arm.
“My God,” he breathed, “who is that!”
“It is Sansa,” said Tressa calmly, and sat up among the ferns. And the next instant Sansa stepped daintily out of the red sunlight and seated herself among them without a sound.
Nobody spoke. The newcomer glanced at Selden, smiled slightly, blushed, then caught a glimpse of Cleves where he lay in the brake, and a mischievous glimmer came into her slanting eyes.