He would be
convinced that she would at once try to get away from the house. If she
kept near it--somewhere--somewhere quite close, and let him search the
spinney, she might get away to its cover after he gave up the search and
came back. The jagged pain had settled in a sort of impossible anguish,
and once or twice she felt sick. But she would die in the open--and she
knew Rosalie was frightened by her absence, and was praying for her.
Prayers counted and, yet, they had all prayed yesterday.
"If I were not very strong, I should faint," she thought. "But I have
been strong all my life. That great French doctor--I have forgotten his
name--said that I had the physique to endure anything."
She said these things that she might gain steadiness and convince
herself that she was not merely living through a nightmare. Twice she
moved her foot suddenly because she found herself in a momentary respite
from pain, beginning to believe that the thing was a nightmare--that
nothing mattered--because she would wake up presently--so she need not
try to hide.
"But in a nightmare one has no pain. It is real and I must go
somewhere," she said, after the foot was moved. Where could she go?
She had not looked at the place as she rode up.
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