We stood still in our places and watched. I could hear my heart beat, and it had not time to calm down before Jim came riding back on the black horse--a changed black horse, all winning airs and graces, to cover shamed penitence now.
The creature pirouetted up the side road, and Jim stopped him at the verandah, patting the throbbing black neck. "Well? I believe I'll buy him myself," he said smiling to me; and then he saw Mrs. Ess Kay and my brother.
"By Jove, Harborough!" said Stan. "It is you, isn't it? Surely it isn't your double?"
"Harborough it is," said Jim, while I listened, dumb with wonder. "How are you, Duke? I was rather expecting you might turn up; but I cabled to you last night to Boodles', and wrote you this morning on the chance you hadn't started."
"Well, I'm blowed," remarked Stan, most inelegantly. "Are you Brett, or is Brett you, or is he somebody else?"
"My name is James Brett Harborough; perhaps you didn't know, or had forgotten," said Jim; and then, jumping off the horse and throwing the lines to Mr. Jacobsen, who had just trotted anxiously up, he came to me.
"Will you forgive me?" he asked.
"I don't know yet what it's all about," I said, dully.
"Miss Woodburn knows; and Mohunsleigh knew. You see, he and I were old pals, so I told him I was in love with his cousin, and was going to try hard to win her, in my own way. You remember Mohunsleigh's friend Harborough. You said the other day you were sorry for him, and--you wished him joy of his love affair."
"Oh, is that the reason you pretended to be only Jim Brett?"