An uncontrollable, unreasonable fit of anger took possession of me. I flew across the yard to that corner where Marigold was tied beside the dog-cart.
"I suppose you read a great deal of evenings?" Joyce was saying.
And Harrod answered, shortly, "No, I don't so much as I used to do. I am too much taken up with other things."
Simple words enough, but they set my heart aflame, yet left me sick and sore.
I undid the mare with a rough hand, and, before she had time to see what I was about, I set my foot in the stirrup and sprang into the saddle. She was used to my doing that, but she was not used to my doing it in that way.
She reared and kicked. My thoughts were elsewhere, and it served me right that, for the first time in my life, she threw me.
I heard a scream from mother, and the next moment I felt that a man's arm had helped me up from the ground.
I was not hurt, only a little stunned, and when I saw that it was Trayton Harrod who had picked me up, I broke away from him and staggered forward to mother.
"I'm not hurt, mother, not a bit," said I, and then I burst into tears. Oh, how ashamed I was! I who prided myself on self-control.
But she put her arm round me and laid my head on her shoulder, and her rare tenderness soothed me as nothing else in the world could have done. I kept my face hid on her neck, as I had done when I was a little child, and used to be quite confident that she could cure every wound.