He turned so white that
she noticed it, and asked him what was the matter. Of course that shut
his mouth the closer, but it morally doubled his motive, and he kept
himself from crying out till the sudden pain of the wrench was over. He
said merely that he thought he had heard something, and he had an awful
ringing in his ears; but he didn't mean that, and he started on again.
The worst was trying to walk without limping, and to talk cheerfully and
encouragingly with that agony tearing at him. But he managed somehow,
and he was congratulating himself on his success when he tumbled down in
a dead faint."
"Oh, come now!" Minver protested.
"It _is_ like an old-fashioned story, where things are operated by
accident instead of motive, isn't it?" Halson smiled with radiant
recognition.
"Fact will always imitate fiction, if you give her time enough," I said.
"Had they got back to the other picnickers?" Rulledge asked, with a
tense voice.
"In sound, but not in sight of them. She wasn't going to bring him into
camp in that state; besides, she couldn't.
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