The other's eyes clouded; the lids fell.
"I could not have done it but for her," he said.
Then for the first time the boy remembered the dead woman.
II
But it was no dead woman the Gentleman was standing over now; it was a chestnut mare, the sun glistening on a coat that shone like a girl's hair. She lay along the turf with lank neck, belly exposed, and shoes flashing; strangely pathetic as a horse seen in such position always looks.
There was not a stain of sweat on her coat, not a trace of froth about her muzzle. A plain snaffle bridle lay beside her. Her head was bare and fine as a lady's; the eyes wide, the nostrils still.
Strangely like somehow, mare and man; and about both faces something of the length and strength of the eagle.
There was one marked difference. In the man life still rippled gloriously; the mare was quiet for ever.
Born to the saddle as to the sea, the boy's eye ran over her.
"What a beauty!" he gasped.