“Forgive?” she repeated, as if she had not understood.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m afraid, if ever we meet again, that you will think of me as—as the clumsy fellow who nearly rode over you, and—and gave you all this trouble!”
“No,” she said, simply, “there is nothing to forgive.”
She raised her eyes to his face for a moment as she spoke. He was still bareheaded, and his hat lay a shapeless mass in the brook, and the water had formed the yellow hair into short, crisp curls on his white forehead, and in his dark eyes lingered the look which they had worn when he had first returned to consciousness—a look of hungering, reverent admiration.
She took up her hat and put it on slowly. A spell seemed to have fallen on her. She thought it was the reaction after the excitement.
“I must go,” she said. “But you? Shall I send some one to help you?”
He rose, reluctantly, and laughed softly.
“To help me!” he said. “But I am all right; I never felt better. It’s not my first tumble by many; and, besides, I’ve not far to go. But you will let me see you home? I”—he faltered—“I should like to tell your people, and thank them——”
“No, no,” she said, her eyes following the direction which he had taken when he said that he had not far to go.
“I am staying at the Towers,” he said, responding to her look. “You know the Towers?”