That sleep would have been her death.

But, all of a sudden something heavy touched her clothes, and startled her, and two dark objects passed her.

They were animals.

In a moment it darted through her mind that animals are wiser than man in some things.  She got up with difficulty, for her limbs were stiffened, and followed them.

The dark forms struggled on before.  They knew the ground, and soon took her to the edge of that very stream into which Coventry had fallen.

They all three went within a yard of Mr. Coventry, and still they pursued their way; and Grace hoped they were making for some shelter.  She now called aloud to Mr. Coventry, thinking he must be on before her.  But he had not recovered his senses.

Unfortunately, the cry startled the sheep, and they made a rush, and she could not keep up with them:  she toiled, she called, she prayed for strength; but they left her behind, and she could see their very forms no more.  Then she cried out in agony, and still, with that power of self-excitement, which her sex possess in an eminent degree, she struggled on and on, beyond her strength till, at last, she fell down from sheer exhaustion, and the snow fell fast upon her body.

But, even as she lay, she heard a tinkling.  She took it for sheep-bells, and started up once more, and once more cried to Mr. Coventry; and this time he heard her, and shook off his deadly lethargy, and tried to hobble toward her voice.

Meantime, Grace struggled toward the sound, and lo, a light was before her, a light gleaming red and dullish in the laden atmosphere.  With her remnant of life and strength, she dashed at it, and found a wall in her way.  She got over it somehow, and saw the light quite close, and heard the ringing of steel on steel.

She cried out for help, for she felt herself failing.  She tottered along the wall of the building, searching for a door.  She found the porch.  She found the church door.  But by this time she was quite spent; her senses reeled; her cry was a moan.

She knocked once with her hands.  She tried to knock again; but the door flew suddenly open, and, in the vain endeavor to knock again, her helpless body, like a pillar of snow, fell forward; but Henry Little caught her directly, and then she clutched him feebly, by mere instinct.

He uttered a cry of love and alarm.  She opened her filmy eyes, and stared at him.  Her cold neck and white cheek rested on his bare and glowing arm.

The moment he saw it was really Grace Carden that had fallen inanimate into his arms, Henry Little uttered a loud cry of love and terror, and, putting his other sinewy arm under her, carried her swiftly off to his fires, uttering little moans of fear and pity as he went; he laid her down by the fire, and darted to the forge, and blew it to a white heat; and then darted back to her, and kissed her cold hands with pretty