Poor Allonby! Barely four hours ago he had rejoiced over the straightforward sincerity of the English summer. He had quoted with smiling satisfaction the words in which a French writer describes the Maremma:
"Cette Maremme fertile et meurtrière qui en deux années vous enrichit et vous tue."
Nothing less murderous could well be imagined than this peaceful Devonshire lane. Here were no ghastly exhalations, no venomous reptiles to glide through the long flowery grass: an Eden without the snake it seemed at first gaze, and yet some unseen malign power had exerted itself, and felled the lusty manhood of this young Englishman with a blow.
To Elaine, the sight was horror and agony untold; it acted physically on her nerves, and produced a dizzy faintness from which it took her several moments to recover. Feverishly she laid her hand on that of the young man, then on his brow, which was cold and rigid; she recoiled, filled with panic, from the touch, and leaped impulsively to her feet.
"Oh, help! Help! Will nobody help? Will nobody hear us if we call?"
"Oh, dear heart, he's bleeding under his coat here somewhere," cried Jane, holding out her hand, on which was something wet and glistening.
This sight robbed the girl of whatever nerve she might have possessed, and she recoiled with a gasp of terror.
"Stay with him," she cried, frantically, "I will run for help;" and, without waiting for reply, she started off to run at her topmost speed, feeling only that the one need of her soul at the moment was violent action, that something must be done at once.
The emergency, the first emergency of her life, had utterly scared away her wits.
She ran blindly, not in the least knowing where she was running--almost with an instinct of flight--escape from that terrible cold, still, bleeding form among the grass.
She could see his face in fancy as she ran, could remember how a tall daisy bent over and touched his brown moustache, and a huge curled dock-leaf flung its shadow over his forehead. All so still, so stiff--ah! how dreadful it was, dreadful beyond the bounds of belief.
In her dire perplexity, she never once thought of what was the only obvious thing to do,--namely, to run to Poole, and tell the Battishills to send down some men with a hurdle. She simply tore along the lane like a mad thing, never stopping to ask herself what she intended, uttering from time to time short sobs of terror and pity.