" She rose. "I won't be a wife," she chanted, "I won't
be--"
Her voice broke suddenly. Lee thought she had tripped, he lunged
forward, but she fell crumpling on the floor. "It's this hellish heat,"
he asserted, lifting her to the bed. Her lips were open and dry, and
her eyes, without vision, stared at the ceiling. Lee wet a
handkerchief, dabbling it over her face; he had never before, he
realized, seen a woman faint. It was terrifying but not grave; they did
it, he had heard, very often. No wonder, after such a night. She had
been gone over a minute now; there must be someone in the place who
would know what to do. He put off moving, however, both because of his
reluctance to leave Savina alone and because of the difficulty of any
explanation. He took her hand; it was cold and damp, and her forehead
was glistening with minute globes of sweat. All the blood seemed to
have been withdrawn from her body.
"I'll have to go for help," he said aloud, in a commonplace manner
which yet struck curiously on his hearing. There was a faint quiver of
her features, a scarcely perceptible sigh, and her fingers weakly
closed on his grasp. "How foolish," Savina murmured. She made an effort
to raise herself up from the pillow, but he restrained her; Lee
commanded her to be absolutely still. "The spirits of ammonia is in the
dressing-case," she whispered. He held the clouding aromatic liquid to
her mouth and she took it laboriously.
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