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Page 452
my lord. Brian! Brian!'' The last words came out in a full-throated wail.
Edwina wanted to dance and sing. Instead she urged, "Let us wash him and tend him, my lady. Perhaps we can save him. Do you go for your salves. I will run to bring water."
Dazedly, uncertainly, Joanna got to her feet. Brian uttered a howl of agonythe huntsman had surreptitiously applied his other foot to the dog's ear. Galvanized by pity and horror, Joanna sprang toward the chest where the medicinals were kept. Now the huntsman knelt beside the dog as if to hold him steady while Joanna treated him, although actually he was exerting all his strength to keep the creature from leaping gaily to his feet. Poor Brian, utterly confused and with a dull ache in his thick head, whimpered and whined.
It took a long time to sponge off enough of the blood so that Joanna could see the actual wounds. Even dazed as she was, she did wonder how three shallow cuts, although they were quite long, could produce so much gore, but it did not seem important enough to speak about. While Joanna stitched up the cuts, Edwina made certain other preparations which resultedafter she had fed Brian some bread sopped in milk "to comfort him"in the dog falling into a heavy sleep. A sleep deep enough that Brian would not rouse to her voice was so unusual that anxiety nagged at Joanna and would not permit her to slip back into shocked numbness. She sat on the floor with the dog's heavy head in her lap and cried over him, and, the floodgates being opened, cried over Geoffrey, and cried, and cried, and cried herself to sleep.
The next morning, there was no longer any way to conceal the fact that Brian was in his usual most excellent health. Edwina's fears that her mistress would slide into blankness were lightened, however, when Joanna came quietly to table at breakfast time and ate, even if only a little.
She was no longer beyond attention. She saw at last Edwina's drawn, unhappy face, Sir Guy's heavy red-rimmed

 
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