Then she turned in her saddle to warn Stafford of the ditch; but as she turned he was close upon the bank, and she saw the big hunter rise for the leap.
A doubt as to how he would land rose in her mind, and she swung Rupert round; and as she did so, she saw the hunter crash through the hedge, stumble at the ditch, and fall, lurching forward, on its edge.
No man alive could have kept his seat, and Stafford came off like a stone thrown from a catapult, and lay, face downwards, in the long, wet grass.
Something like a hot iron shot through Ida's heart, and sent her face white, and she rode up to him and flung herself from Rupert and knelt beside the prostrate form.
He lay quite still; and she knew quite well what had happened: that he had fallen on his head and stunned himself.
She remembered, at that moment, that she herself had once so fallen; but the remembrance did nothing to soften her present anxiety.

She knelt beside him and lifted his head on her knee, and his white face smote her accusingly.

He was still, motionless so long that she began to fear--was he dead?
She asked herself the question with a heavy pulsation of the heart, with a sense of irrevocable loss.

If he was dead, then--then--what had she lost! Trembling in every limb, she laid her hand upon his heart.

It beat, but slowly, reluctantly.