He looked at it with
anxiety so obviously deep and troubled that Hilda silently smiled. She
who had been battered, as she said, twice round the world, found it
disproportionate.
"It's the merest scratch," she said, grave again to meet his glance.
"Indeed, I fear not." The priest made a solicitous bandage with his
handkerchief, while the circle about them solidified. "It is quite
unpleasantly deep. You must let me take you at once to the nearest
chemist's and get it properly washed and dressed, or it may give you a
vast amount of trouble--but I am walking."
"I will walk, too," Hilda said, readily. "I should prefer it, truly."
With her undamaged hand she produced a rupee from her pocket, where a
few coins chinked casually, looked at it, and groped for another. "I
really can't afford any more," she said. "He can get his wheel mended
with that, can't he?"
"It is three times his fare," Arnold said, austerely, "and he deserved
nothing--but a fine, perhaps." The man was suppliant before them,
cringing, salaaming, holding joined palms open. Hilda lifted her head
and looked over the shoulders of the little rabble, where the sun stood
golden upon the roadside and two naked children played with a torn pink
kite.
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