ter Nine_

GOOD-BYE!

Madeira went off in the buckboard late that morning, and, having left
word with black Chloe that he might have dinner at the Canaan Hotel, did
not come home at all at noon.

His daughter stayed in her room all morning, and far past her lunch
hour. About the middle of the afternoon she got up from the bed where
she had been lying and sat by the window that looked out across the
Tigmores. Her father's face, in its frame of entreaty, trouble, unrest,
hung between her and the hills, so that, for a time, she saw nothing but
Madeira. Little by little, however, the hills themselves became
insistent. They were very beautiful, a long, massed glory of colour, red
and gold and green, all looped about by the silver cord of the Di. As
the girl watched, a lone horseman came out of one of the wooded knobs
and galloped down the ridge road toward Canaan. She could see him
plainly, his breadth of shoulders, his high-headedness, his good
horsemanship. She got up quickly, swaying toward the window, her hands
over her heart, with the strange little pushing gesture, as though she
must push her heart down. The horseman went on down the road toward
Canaan.

"Oh!" cried the girl presently, pleadingly, "if I may see him just once
again! If I just don't have to lose him all at once!" She ran then
across the room to another window, through which she whistled shrilly at
the negro man dozing in the succulent grass in front of the stable.

"Samson!" she shouted, "saddle Ribbon the quickest you ever did in your
life!" And when she saw that the negro had roused sufficiently to
execute her commands, she turned from the window hurriedly, went to her
clothes-closet hurriedly, changed her house gown for a riding-habit
hurriedly, and was out in the yard at the mounting block as the saddle
mare was led up from the stable. Taking the bridle from the negro's
hand, she leaped into the saddle and was off across the yard like a
flash, while the lip of the astonished Samson sagged with impotent
inquiry.

Out on the ridge road, she urged the mare to a gallop. All the way she
was talking to Madeira, almost praying to him. His face with its trouble
and pain still moved before her. "Ah, but you will forgive me!" she was
saying to it. "You wait. Wait and see how this ride turns out. I'm going
to give myself just one chance, Dad. I'm going to find him, and I'm
going riding with him. And I'm not going to say anything. But I look
nice, don'