In the morning she was in a high fever and unable to rise out of her
bed. She had a headache and felt wretched and ill. In her exhausted
state, weakened by worry and her resistance gone, the drenching, the
chill and the long sitting in her lonely room had overmastered her
completely.
She raved about Robert, crying to him in her fevered excitement, and he,
all unconscious, was at that time at his work, tired also and exhausted
by his terrible night upon the moor.
When he stumbled and fell into the mossy pool, his mind became more
collected and, scrambling out, he stood to consider where he was, trying
to find his bearings in the thick darkness.
The low whinnying of a horse near by gave him a clew and he started in
the direction of the cry, concluding that it was some of the horses
sheltering behind a dyke which ran across the moor from the end of the
village.
He crawled and scrambled along, and after going about twenty yards he
came to the dyke, at the other side of which stood the cowering horses.
"Whoa, Bob," he said soothingly, and one of them whinnied back in
response as if glad to know that a human being was near. He moved nearer
to them, and began to stroke their manes and clap their necks, to which
they responded by rubbing their faces against him and cuddling an
affectionate return for the sympathy in his voice.
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