“Ride up the hill and let me walk.”
“Not a bit of it. We’ll push on as we are, if you don’t mind.” I had no breath left for talking, so I plodded on in silence. There had been so much to do in the interval since we had left the Devil’s Staircase that I seemed to have had no time to think of anything except the pressing affair of the moment. But I had time now, as I strode up the hill; and for the first time I seemed to awake to a recognition of the supreme confidence and unquestioning trust which Volna showed in me.
The night was very dark; we were miles from everywhere; she knew nothing of me, and had only seen me first some eight or nine hours before; and yet she rode by my side as contentedly as though we had been friends for life, and were just out for a sort of conventional picnic in conventional hours. The pluck of it appealed to me as much as anything.
“You are a wonderful girl, Peggy,” I exclaimed involuntarily.
“Peggy? Do you know, I think I begin to like that name. I have been saying it over and over to myself during the ride. But why am I wonderful? I wish I could get used to saying Bob. But I have a sort of something in the throat that seems to jump up and stop me.”
“Ah, that’s a spasm of the naming tissues. One only has it when a name is fresh. You’ll get over that. The best cure is to say it often.”
“Is it, Bob? But why am I wonderful?”
“You do this unconventional thing as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world!”
“Do you mean I oughtn’t to trust—my brother Bob? You see, I just can’t help myself. I had to trust you. Besides, if you knew”—she broke off, and after a pause added a little eagerly—“you understand, don’t you?”
“I understand that chance has given me a very delightful sister.”