H

He could not quite say how it had happened. It had come so suddenly, so suddenly. And now, a few steps behind the others, he was walking toward the house. He had a feeling of sickness, of horror: a helpless misery, the meaning of which he shrank from realising, darkened his mind. Only he remembered—he could not help remembering: it was there before him with a curious vividness—the light of the afternoon sun on the long white road; the glare, the heat, something dark and motionless stretched in the dust—still, very still....

Brocklehurst had been walking a few paces behind him, and close to the hedge. He had been pulling some wildflowers—a few had been scattered about him as he lay there on the road, so strangely quiet and white, a thin stream of red blood creeping through his hair and widening out, forming a little patch of mud.... And when he had lifted him, the curious whiteness of his face!

Yet in a way he had escaped wonderfully. None of the wheels had touched him: just that single kick a little above his left ear....

They had been walking slowly, Brocklehurst close to the hedge, he, Graham, in the middle of the road, when the terrified horses had come dashing round the corner, the drag swaying violently behind them, one of the reins hanging broken and useless. He remembered jumping to one side. His foot had slipped on something, and he had fallen. The dust, the noise, a wheel just touching his coat as he rolled himself out of the way.... He knew now that Brocklehurst had sprung at the horses’ heads, had given him, it might be, that one extra moment....

And now it was all over. Their long afternoon in the boat; on the rocks; their little act of pagan worship;—all that had been this afternoon, and it was over. He was walking, a few steps behind the others, up the avenue toward the house.

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