“Would you mind throwing those old flowers away now?” she said, glancing at the spoils which Boyle still carried.
“Why?” he asked.
“Oh, they're too ridiculous. Please do.”
“May I keep one?” he asked, with the first intonation of masculine weakness in his voice.
“If you like,” she said, a little coldly.
Boyle selected a small spray of myrtle and cast the other flowers obediently aside.
“Dear me, how ridiculous!” she said.
“What is ridiculous?” he asked, lifting his eyes to hers with a slight color. But he saw that she was straining her eyes in the distance.
“Why, there don't seem to be any horses to the coach!”
He looked. Through a gap in the furze he could see the vehicle now quite distinctly, standing empty, horseless and alone. He glanced hurriedly around them; on the one side a few rocks protected them from the tangled rim of the ridge; on the other stretched the plain. “Sit down, don't move until I return,” he said quickly. “Take that.” He handed back her pistol, and ran quickly to the coach. It was no illusion; there it stood vacant, abandoned, its dropped pole and cut traces showing too plainly the fearful haste of its desertion! A light step behind him made him turn. It was Miss Cantire, pink and breathless, carrying the cocked derringer in her hand. “How foolish of you—without a weapon,” she gasped in explanation.