n
car. The day was momentarily brightening, yet something of the early
morning red was about her. His throat tightened at sight of her radiant
swiftness. Her eyes were deeper, her lips more than ever red.... On the
deck of the ferry, before the start, she said:

"I feel as if we were escaping from somewhere, and could not tolerate a
moment's delay."

...At ten o'clock they were in the saddle, and Dunstan was far behind.
The morning, as perfect as ever arose in Northern summer; the azure
glorified with golden light, and off to the South, a few shining
counterpanes of cloud lay still. The half had not been told about
Beth's Clarendon, a huge rounded black, with a head slightly Roman, and
every movement a pose. He was skimp of mane and tail; such fine grain
does not run to hair. While there was sanity and breeding in his steady
black eye, every look and motion suggested "too much horse" for a
woman. Yet Beth handled him superbly, and from a side-saddle. Clarendon
had in his temper, that gift of show aristocrats--excess of life, not
at all to be confused with wickedness--which finds in plain outdoors
and decent going, plentiful stimulus for top endeavor and hot
excitement.

"I've had him long," Beth said, "and though he has sprung from a walk
to a trot countless times without a word from me, he has yet to slow
down of his own accord. He can do his twelve miles an hour, and turn
around and do it back.... You see how he handles--for me."

She delighted in his show qualities, rarely combined with such
excellent substance. She showed his gaits, but rode a trot by
preference. Bedient, who had a good mare, laughed joyously when his
mount was forced into a run to keep abreast. Clarendon, without the
slightest show of strain, had settled to his trot.... All Bedient's
thinking and imaging during the years alone, of the woman he should
some time find, had never brought him anything so thrilling as this
slightly flushed profile of Beth's now. What an anchorage of reality
she was, after years of dream-stuff--a crown of discoveries, no
less--and what an honor, her gift of companionship! He felt an
expansion of power, and strength to count this day great with
compensation, should the future know only the interminable dull aching
of absence and distance.

Bedient had started to speak of the picture, but she bade him wait....
As they rode along a country road, they came to an old ruin of a
farm-house, surrounded by huge barns, some