the groom took
Aida by the bridle, and the sad procession made its way slowly toward
the enclosure surrounding the weighing-stand.

As for Seaman, half submerged in the stream, and with an incurable
fracture of the leg, nothing was left to do for the poor animal but to
kill him.

CHAPTER XXVI. AN UNCONSCIOUS AVOWAL

Walking slowly, step by step, beside her whose power had so quickly
and so wholly subjugated him, watching over her removal with more than
paternal solicitude, Henri de Prerolles, sustained by a ray of hope,
drew a memorandum-book from his pocket, wrote upon a slip of paper a
name and an address, and, giving it to the groom, ordered him to go
ahead of the litter and telephone to the most celebrated surgeon in
Paris, requesting him to go as quickly as possible to the domicile
of Mademoiselle de Vermont, and, meantime, to send with the greatest
despatch one of the eight-spring carriages from the stables.

It was noon by the dial on the grand-stand when the litter was finally
deposited in a safe place. The surgeon could hardly arrive in less than
two hours; therefore, the General realized that he must rely upon his
own experience in rendering the first necessary aid.

He lifted Valentine's hand, unbuttoned the glove, laid his finger on her
pulse, and counted the pulsations, which were weak, slow, and irregular.

While the wife of the gate-keeper kept a bottle of salts at the nostrils
of the injured girl, Henri soaked a handkerchief in tincture of arnica
and sponged her temples with it; then, pouring some drops of the liquid
into a glass of water, he tried in vain to make her swallow a mouthful.
Her teeth, clenched by the contraction of muscles, refused to allow it
to pass into her throat. At the end of half an hour, the inhalation
of the salts began to produce a little effect; the breath came more
regularly, but that was the only symptom which announced that the swoon
might soon terminate. The landau with the high springs arrived. The
General ordered the top laid back, and helped to lift and place upon the
cushions on the back seat the thin mattress on which Zibeline lay; then
he took his place on the front seat, made the men draw the carriage-top
back into its proper position, and the equipage rolled smoothly,
and without a jar, to its destination. On the way they met the first
carriages that had arrived at the Auteuil hippodrome, the occupants of
which little suspected what an exciting dramatic i