“Ay, in twenty minutes!” she muttered, and then, saving her breath, she kept on steadily along the moonlit road, soothing the child with a word when it was necessary. In a very brief time she was out of sight.
For a while all was still as death. Then favoured by the recumbent position, Henrietta began to recover; and presently, but not until some minutes had elapsed, she came to herself.
She sighed deeply, and gazing upward at the dark sky, with its twinkling stars, she wondered how she came to be in such a strange place; but without any desire to rise, or any wish to solve the riddle. A second sigh as deep as the first lifted the oppression from her breast; and with returning strength she wondered what was the long dark line that bounded her vision. Was it, could it be, the head-board of her bed? Or the tester?
It was, in fact, the wall that bounded the wood, but she was not able to take that in. And though the nipping air, blowing freely on her face, was doing its best to refresh her, and she was beginning to grope in her memory for the past, it needed a sound, a voice, to restore to her, not her powers, but her consciousness. The event soon happened. Two men drew near, talking in low fierce tones. At first, lying there as in a dream, she heard without understanding; and then, still powerless under the spell, she heard and understood.
“Why didn’t you,” Lunt’s voice growled hoarsely, “loose the dog, as I told you? We’d have had her by now.”
“Ay, and have had the country about our ears, too,” Giles answered angrily.
“And shan’t we have it about our ears when that vixen has told her tale?” the other cried. “I swear my neck aches now!”
“She couldn’t carry the brat far, nor fast.”
“No, but—what’s that?” There was alarm in Lunt’s tone.
“Only the lad following us,” Giles answered. “He’s brought the lanthorn.”