I remember the rear wheels turning with a grinding,
spitting noise.
When I woke up, Alicia was sitting by the side of the road, with the
doctor's head in her lap, and I was lying on the grass near by. Her
eyes were big and blank in a bloodless face, and the curling ends of
her long bright hair hung in the dust. There was a cruel red mark on
her forehead. Otherwise she was quite uninjured. I wasn't conscious
of any pain myself--not then, at least.
"Sophy," Alicia said, impersonally, "Doctor Geddes is dead." And she
fell to stroking his cheek lightly, with one finger; "quite dead.
Without one word to me, Sophy!"
The figure on the ground looked dreadfully still and helpless. There
was something ghastly wrong in seeing so strong a man lie so still
and helpless. And the road, an unfrequented one, was unutterably
lonesome. There was nothing, nobody in sight--nothing but the
buzzard, black against the blue sky, tipping his wings to the wind.
"You must go for help," I mumbled.
"I dare not leave him. I know he's dead, Sophy. But--he might open
his eyes, just once more. You see, he didn't know, before he--died,
that I was very much in love with him--oh, terribly in love with
him, Sophy!--from the first time I saw him standing in our door.
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