By chance, before we came to the water, we had to cross a lighted street, and, intuitively, I knew my companion had turned to look at me.
Her hood had fallen back, her golden hair was streaming in the wind like Lady Godiva’s and she never looked more distractingly lovely, albeit the terror of this thing had whitened her delicate face, usually aglow with roses, and lent a strange, wild gleam to her blue eyes as she fastened them on me.
My first thought was that she was afraid of me because of my fierce eagerness, but when she spoke I knew I had been in error.
“See the blood on my arm—on your face. Oh, God, Morgan! you—you are cruelly hurt!” she cried.
CHAPTER XI.
A STERN CHASE.
When Hildegarde cried out in such evident dismay upon discovering that I was bleeding more or less profusely from some miserable cut on the head, my first sensation, strange as it may seem, was one of pleasure.
That she should care at all whether I suffered was a singular thing in itself, for people do not usually interest themselves in those for whom they profess to entertain a feeling of scorn that at least borders on hatred.
This feeling was only too transitory, a fleeting glimpse, as it were, of that Paradise, the doors of which were shut against me forever.
Then came the speedy reaction.