Thomas Hardy: The Woodlanders

36. CHAPTER XXXVI. (continued)

"Are you hurt much--much?" she cried, faintly. "Oh, oh, how is this!"

"Rather much--but don't be frightened," he answered in a difficult whisper, and turning himself to obtain an easier position if possible. "A little water, please."

She ran across into the dining-room, and brought a bottle and glass, from which he eagerly drank. He could then speak much better, and with her help got upon the nearest couch.

"Are you dying, Edgar?" she said. "Do speak to me!"

"I am half dead," said Fitzpiers. "But perhaps I shall get over it....It is chiefly loss of blood."

"But I thought your fall did not hurt you," said she. "Who did this?"

"Felice--my father-in-law!...I have crawled to you more than a mile on my hands and knees--God, I thought I should never have got here!...I have come to you--be-cause you are the only friend--I have in the world now....I can never go back to Hintock--never--to the roof of the Melburys! Not poppy nor mandragora will ever medicine this bitter feud!...If I were only well again--"

"Let me bind your head, now that you have rested."

"Yes--but wait a moment--it has stopped bleeding, fortunately, or I should be a dead man before now. While in the wood I managed to make a tourniquet of some half-pence and my handkerchief, as well as I could in the dark....But listen, dear Felice! Can you hide me till I am well? Whatever comes, I can be seen in Hintock no more. My practice is nearly gone, you know--and after this I would not care to recover it if I could."

By this time Felice's tears began to blind her. Where were now her discreet plans for sundering their lives forever? To administer to him in his pain, and trouble, and poverty, was her single thought. The first step was to hide him, and she asked herself where. A place occurred to her mind.