But suddenly she startled
him, as she herself was startled into a keen sense of the
suffering agony of the present; she sprang up and pushed him
aside, and went rapidly towards the gate of the field. He could
not move as quickly as most men, but he put forth his utmost
speed. He followed across the road, on to the rocky common; but,
as he went along, with his uncertain gait, in the dusk gloaming,
he stumbled, and fell over some sharp projecting stone. The acute
pain which shot up his back forced a short cry from him; and,
when bird and beast are hushed into rest and the stillness of
night is over all, a high-pitched sound, like the voice of pain,
is carried far in the quiet air. Ruth, speeding on in her
despair, heard the sharp utterance, and stopped suddenly short.
It did what no remonstrance could have done; it called her out of
herself. The tender nature was in her still, in that hour when
all good angels seemed to have abandoned her. In the old days she
could never bear to hear or see bodily suffering in any of God's
meanest creatures, without trying to succour them; and now, in
her rush to the awful death of the suicide, she stayed her wild
steps, and turned to find from whom that sharp sound of anguish
had issued.
He lay among the white stones, too faint with pain to move, but
with an agony in his mind far keener than any bodily pain, as he
thought that by his unfortunate fall he had lost all chance of
saving her.
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