a physician, from another
a restorative was obtained. And Tristrem, meanwhile, knelt at the girl's
side, beating her hand with his. It had been scratched, he noticed, as
by a briar, and under the nails were stains such as might come from
plucking berries that are red.

As he tried to take from her the whip, that he might rub the hand that
held it too, the girl recovered consciousness again. The swoon had
lasted but a moment or so, yet to him who watched it had been unmeasured
time. She drew away the hand he held, and raising herself she looked at
him; to her lips there came a tremulousness and her eyes filled.

"My darling," Mrs. Raritan sobbed, "are you hurt? Tell me. How did it
happen? Did the horse run away with you. Oh, Viola, I knew there would
be an accident. Where are you hurt? Did the horse drag you?"

The girl turned to her mother almost wonderingly. It seemed to Tristrem
that she was not yet wholly herself.

"Yes," she answered; "no, I mean--no, he didn't, it was an accident, he
shied. _Do_ get me upstairs." And with that her head fell again on the
cushion.

Tristrem sought to raise her, but she motioned him back and caught her
mother's hand, and rising with its assistance she let the arm circle her
waist, and thus supported she suffered herself to be led away.

Tristrem followed them to the hall. On the porch a man loitered, hat in
hand; as Tristrem approached he rubbed the brim reflectively.

"I saw the horse as good as an hour ago," he said, "I was going to
Caswell's." And with this information he crooked his arm and made a
backward gesture. "It's down yonder on the way to the Point," he
explained. "As I passed Hazard's I looked in the cross-road--I call it a
road, but after you get on a bit it's nothing more than a cow-path, all
bushes and suchlike. But just up the road I see'd the horse. He was
nibbling grass as quiet as you please. I didn't pay no attention, I
thought he was tied. Well, when I was coming back I looked again; he
wasn't there, but just as I got to the turn I heard somebody holloaing,
and I stopped. A man ran up and says to me, 'There's a lady hurt
herself, can't you give her a lift?' 'Where?' says I. 'Down there,' he
says, 'back of Hazard's; she's been thrown.' So I turned round, and sure
enough there she was, by the fence, sort of dazed like. I says, 'Are you
hurt, miss?' and she says, 'No,' but could I bring her here, and then I
see'd that her dress was torn. She got in, and I ask