Part 58

She braced herself to the shock--he was rapidly nearing her--a powerful ray from an arc-light shot across his path--fell full upon his hatless head--

"You!--Luigi!" she cried and darted forward to meet him.

He thrust out his arm to brush her aside, never slackening his pace; but she caught at it, and, clasping it with both hands, hung upon it her full weight, letting him drag her on with him a few feet.

"Stop, Luigi Poggi!--Stop, I tell you, or I'll scream for help--stop, I say!"

He was obliged to slacken his speed in order not to hurt her. He tried to shake her off, untwist her hands; she clung to him like a leech. Then he stopped short, panting. She could see the sweat dropping from his forehead; his teeth began to chatter. She still held his arm tightly with both hands.

"Let me go--" he said, catching his breath spasmodically.

"Not till you tell me where you've been--what you've been doing--tell me."

"Doing--" He brought out the word with difficulty.

"Yes, doing, don't you hear?" She shook his arm violently in her anxious terror.

"I don't know--" the words were a long groan.

"Where have you been then?--quick, tell me--"

He began to shake with a hard nervous chill.

"With him--over in the quarry woods--I tried to take him--he fought me--" The chill shook him till he could scarcely stand.

She dropped his arm; drew away from him as if touching were contamination; then her eyes, dilating with a still greater horror, fixed themselves on the bosom of his shirt--there was a stain--

"Have you killed him--" she whispered hoarsely.

The answer came through the clattering teeth:

"I--I don't know--you said--you said you--never wanted to see him again--"

Luigi found himself speaking the last words to the empty air; he was alone, in the middle of the road, in the full glare of an electric light. He was conscious of a desire to escape from it, to escape detection--to rid himself of his over-powering misery in the quietest way possible. He gathered himself together; his limbs steadied; the shivering grew less; he went on down the road at a quick walk. Already the quarrymen were coming out in force to see what might be up. He must avoid them at all hazards.

* * * * *

One thought was the motive power which sent Aileen running up the road towards the pastures, by crossing which she could reach in a few minutes the quarry woods: "I must know if he is dead; if he is not dead, I must try to save him from a living death."

This thought alone sent her speeding over the darkened slopes. She was light of foot, but sometimes she stumbled; she was up and on again--the sheepfold her goal. The quarry woods stood out dark against the clear sky; there seemed to be more light on these uplands than below in The Gore; she saw the sheepfold like a square blot on the pasture slope. She reached it--should she call aloud--call his name? How find him?

She listened intently; the wind had died down; the sheep were huddling and moving restlessly within the fold; this movement seemed unusual. She climbed the rough stone wall; the sheep were massed in one corner, heads to the wall, tails to the bare centre of the fold; they kept crowding closer and more close.

In that bared space of hoof-trampled earth she saw him lying.

She leaped down, the frightened sheep riding one another in their frantic efforts to get away from the invaders of their peace. She knelt by him; lifted his head on her knee; her hands touched his sleeve, she drew back from something warm and wet.

"Champney--O Champney, what has he done to you!" she moaned in hopeless terror; "what shall I do--"

"Is it you--Aileen?--help me up--"

With her aid he raised himself to a sitting posture.

"It must have been the loss of blood--I felt faint suddenly." He spoke clearly. "Can you help me?"