The Woodlanders

"You are not dead!--you are not hurt! Thank God--thank God!" he said,

almost sobbing in his delight and relief from the horror of his

apprehension. "Grace, my wife, my love, how is this--what has

happened?"

"I was coming on to you," she said as distinctly as she could in the

half-smothered state of her face against his. "I was trying to be as

punctual as possible, and as I had started a minute late I ran along

the path very swiftly--fortunately for myself. Just when I had passed

between these trees I felt something clutch at my dress from behind

with a noise, and the next moment I was pulled backward by it, and fell

to the ground. I screamed with terror, thinking it was a man lying

down there to murder me, but the next moment I discovered it was iron,

and that my clothes were caught in a trap. I pulled this way and that,

but the thing would not let go, drag it as I would, and I did not know

what to do. I did not want to alarm my father or anybody, as I wished

nobody to know of these meetings with you; so I could think of no other

plan than slipping off my skirt, meaning to run on and tell you what a

strange accident had happened to me. But when I had just freed myself

by leaving the dress behind, I heard steps, and not being sure it was

you, I did not like to be seen in such a pickle, so I hid away."

"It was only your speed that saved you! One or both of your legs would

have been broken if you had come at ordinary walking pace."

"Or yours, if you had got here first," said she, beginning to realize

the whole ghastliness of the possibility. "Oh, Edgar, there has been

an Eye watching over us to-night, and we should be thankful indeed!"

He continued to press his face to hers. "You are mine--mine again now."

She gently owned that she supposed she was. "I heard what you said

when you thought I was injured," she went on, shyly, "and I know that a

man who could suffer as you were suffering must have a tender regard

for me. But how does this awful thing come here?"

"I suppose it has something to do with poachers." Fitzpiers was still

so shaken by the sense of her danger that he was obliged to sit awhile,

and it was not until Grace said, "If I could only get my skirt out

nobody would know anything about it," that he bestirred himself.