I don't know what had come to me, but I was so glad to see him that I could not bear he should be angry with me.
"That doesn't signify in the least," said he. "It's you of whom I am thinking. I am afraid you must be cold and tired, and I fear we shall be a long while getting home yet." He was close to me now. "You had better get into the gig," said he; "I'll tie the horse to it."
He held out his hands to help me down, and I put mine in his.
"Why, you are chilled to the bone," murmured he. "You'll take your death of cold."
He lifted me from the horse, for indeed I was numb with the penetrating damp, and led me to the gig. Then he took the horse-cloth which lay across the seat and wrapped it round me as tightly as he could.
"Haven't you a pin?" he asked.
I tried to laugh but I could not; something stuck in my throat.
"I thought women always had pins," he added.
Then I did laugh a little; but I must have been very much tired and overwrought, for the laugh turned into a sort of sob. I could only hope he did not notice it. He made no remark, at all events; he only wrapped the rug as closely as he could around me, and took hold of my hands again, as though to feel if they were any warmer. He held them in his own a long time; he held them very fast. The blood seemed to ebb away from my heart as I stood there with my hands in his. My face was turned away, but I felt that his keen dark eyes were fixed upon mine, concernedly, tenderly. A strange, new happiness filled my whole being; I did not know what it meant, but I knew that I wanted to keep on standing there like that, in spite of the cold and the dampness and the dark; I knew that what I felt was sweeter than any joy that had come to me before in my life.
But Trayton Harrod took away his hands. He passed his arm round my waist, and holding me by my elbows so as not to displace the plaid which he had wrapped so carefully around me, he helped me up into the gig. I let him do just what he liked. I, who had been so defiant and proud before, and who thought that I scorned such a thing as a beau, I was letting this man behave to me just as Captain Forrester might have behaved to Joyce; I was as wax in his hands. I did not think of that at the time; I do not know that I ever thought of it. It only strikes me now as I write it down.