Perhaps this
had its unnerving influence, though swift and surefooted ordinarily, her
ankle turned amidst the gravel shifting beneath her flying steps, and she
sank suddenly to the ground, slipped down a precipitous incline, caught
herself, half crouching against a gigantic boulder.
There was no recourse for Bayne. No one else was within view. Though
between his teeth he muttered his distaste for the devoir that should
bring him to her side, and the solicitude he was constrained to show, he
leaped from the veranda and started down the ravine to her assistance, to
"make his manners," as he said sarcastically to himself. But when he had
come to the little rustic bridge and, glancing up, saw that she had not
yet risen, he began to run, and before he reached her, climbing the
ascent with athletic agility, he called out to ask if the fall had hurt
her.
"I don't know," she faltered, and when he was at her side she looked up
at him with a pale and quivering face.
"Try to stand," he urged, as he leaned down and took her arm.
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