ery line of her. Class
and lineage marked her as she sat easily, her supple young body
accommodating itself handsomely to the restrained restiveness of the
steed beneath her. She rode with perfect confidence, as an experienced
horsewoman, and was well turned out in a close habit, neither old nor
new.

Her dark hair--cut rather squarely across her forehead after an
individual fashion of her own--was surmounted by a slashed hat,
decorated with a wide-flung plume of smoky color, caught with a jewel
at the side. Both jewel and plume had come, no doubt, in some ship
from across seas. Her hands were small, and gloved as well as might be
at that day of the world. There was small ornament about her; nor did
this young woman need ornament beyond the color of her cheek and hair
and eye, and perhaps the touch of a bold ribbon at her throat, which
held a white collar closer to a neck almost as white.

An aristocrat, you must have called her, had you seen her in any
chance company. And had you been a young man such as this, and had you
met her alone, in some sort of agitation, and had consent been given
you--or had you taken consent--surely you would have been loath to
part company with one so fair, and would have ridden on with her as he
did now.

But at first they did not speak. A quick, startled look came into the
face of the young woman. A deeper shade glowed upon the cheek of the
cavalier, reddening under the skin--a flush which shamed him, but
which he could not master. He only kept his eyes straight between his
horse's ears as he rode--after he had raised his hat and bowed at the
close of the episode.

"I am to thank Captain Lewis once more," began the young woman, in a
voice vibrant and clear--the sweetest, kindest voice in the world. "It
is good fortune that you rode abroad so early this morning. You always
come at need!"

He turned upon her, mute for a time, yet looking full into her face.
It was sadness, not boldness, not any gay challenge, that marked his
own.

"Can you then call it good fortune?" His own voice was low,
suppressed.

"Why not, then?"

"You did not need me. A moment, and you would have been in command
again--there was no real need of me. Ah, you never need me!"

"Yet you come. You were here, had the need been worse. And, indeed, I
was quite off my guard--I must have been thinking of something else."

"And I also."

"And there was the serpent."

"Madam, there was the serpent! And why not?