at once; she would have it no other
way. She only spoke to him, really, about the condition of the horses,
or the weather--never a word conceivably personal; and every day he
looked at her more personally, let his imagination, without knowing it,
stray too far. At first he merely enjoyed being with her; then he
appreciated that a sense of intimacy had grown upon him, and he was
troubled that she did not reciprocate, that their extended companionship
had not diminished at all the appalling distance dividing them. There
was something, moreover, beyond her beauty to stimulate his interest.
She appeared not to know fear, and once or twice he ventured to reprove
her, enjoying her angry reactions. She even came to the stables, urging
him to let her ride horses that he knew were not safe.

"But you ride them," she would persist.

"When I find a horse I can't ride, Miss Sylvia, I guess I'll have to
take up a new line. If your father would come and say it's all
right----"

Even then he failed to grasp the fact that he guarded her for his own
sake rather more than for her father's.

He nearly interfered when he heard her cry to her brother as they
started off one morning:

"I'm going to ride harder from now on, Lambert. I've got to get fit for
next winter. Coming out will take a lot of doing."

"If she rides any harder," he muttered, "she'll break her silly neck."

It angered him that she never spoke to him in that voice, with that easy
manner. Perhaps his eagerness to be near her had led her to undervalue
him. Somehow he would change all that, and he wanted her to stop calling
him "Morton," as if he had been an ordinary groom, or an animal, but he
would have to go slowly. Although he didn't realize the great fact then,
he did know that he shrank from attempting anything that would take her
away from him.

It was her harder riding, indeed, that opened his eyes, that ushered in
the revolution.

It happened toward the close of a mid-July afternoon. Mud whirled from
her horse's hoofs, plentifully sprinkling her humble guardian.

"Now what the devil's she up to?" he thought with a sharp fear.

She turned and rode at a gallop for a hedge, an uneven, thorny barrier
that separated two low meadows. He put spurs to his horse, shouting:

"Hold up, Miss Sylvia! That's a rotten take-off."

Flushed and laughing, she glanced over her shoulder.

"Got to try it to prove it, Morton."

He realized afterward that it was as near i