“What—­is it?—­what has happened?” she said faintly, yet with a slight touch of formality in her manner.

“You must have fallen—­from the road above,” said Bray hesitatingly.

“From the road above?” she repeated, with a slight frown, as if to concentrate her thought.  She glanced upward, then at the ledge before her, and then, for the first time, at the darkening abyss below.  The color, which had begun to return, suddenly left her face here, and she drew instinctively back against the mountain side.  “Yes,” she half murmured to herself, rather than to him, “it must be so.  I was walking too near the bank—­and—­I fell!” Then turning to him, she said, “And you found me lying here when you came.”

“I think,” stammered Bray, “that I was here when you fell, and I—­I broke the fall.”  He was sorry for it a moment afterward.

She lifted her handsome gray eyes to him, saw the dust, dirt, and leaves on his back and shoulders, the collar of his shirt torn open, and a few spots of blood from a bruise on his forehead.  Her black eyebrows straightened again as she said coldly, “Dear me!  I am very sorry; I couldn’t help it, you know.  I hope you are not otherwise hurt.”

“No,” he replied quickly.  “But you, are you sure you are not injured?  It must have been a terrible shock.”

“I’m not hurt,” she said, helping herself to her feet by the aid of the mountain-side bushes, and ignoring his proffered hand.  “But,” she added quickly and impressively, glancing upward toward the stage road overhead, “why don’t they come?  They must have missed me!  I must have been here a long time; it’s too bad!”

“They missed you?” he repeated diffidently.

“Yes,” she said impatiently, “of course!  I wasn’t alone.  Don’t you understand?  I got out of the coach to walk uphill on the bank under the trees.  It was so hot and stuffy.  My foot must have slipped up there—­and—­I—­slid—­down.  Have you heard any one calling me?  Have you called out yourself?”

Mr. Bray did not like to say he had only just recovered consciousness.  He smiled vaguely and foolishly.  But on turning around in her impatience, she caught sight of the chasm again, and lapsed quite white against the mountain side.

“Let me give you some water from the spring,” he said eagerly, as she sank again to a sitting posture; “it will refresh you.”

He looked hesitatingly around him; he had neither cup nor flask, but he filled the pail and held it with great dexterity to her lips.  She drank a little, extracted a lace handkerchief from some hidden pocket, dipped its point in the water, and wiped her face delicately, after a certain feline fashion.  Then, catching sight of some small object in the fork of a bush above her, she quickly pounced upon it, and with a swift sweep of her hand under her skirt, put on her fallen Slipper, and stood on her feet again.

“How does one get out of such a place?” she asked fretfully, and then, glancing at him half indignantly, “why don’t you shout?”