“I suppose we shall be leaving you soon,” said Lady Wyndover, as she rose and drew her dressing-gown round her. “I mentioned it to Lady Lilias yesterday, but she pressed us to stay. Good-night, my dear. Sleep well—but that is quite an unnecessary injunction, I know; you always sleep like a top or a dormouse.”
But Esmeralda did not sleep like a top that night. She lay awake for a long time—thinking of Lady Mary and Lord Trafford. The girl did not seem so nice to her after what Lady Wyndover had said. In love with Lord Trafford; and ever so many women were in love with him. She thought it over as she lay awake, with her eyes fixed on the starlit sky—for she slept with the blind up and the window open. Air and light were precious to this girl of the wilds. What if she were to say “No” to him? He would perhaps marry this Lady Mary—would certainly marry some woman. The thought brought a strange little pain to her heart that puzzled and troubled her.
Love was growing fast!
When she came down the next morning she was conscious of a novel shyness as she shook hands with the marquis, who as usual, was waiting in the hall for her. He smiled at her in his grave way; then suddenly his dark eyes shone, for he noticed that she wore an orchid bloom which he had sent up to her room that morning.
After breakfast he proposed a ride, and they started. The mare was a little lame from a badly nailed shoe, and Carter brought round a young Irish horse.
“He’s young as yet miss; and you mustn’t ask too much of him, if you please,” he said to Esmeralda.
She was absent-minded this morning, and paid little or no attention; but Trafford heard, and kept his eye on the horse.
It behaved very well until Esmeralda—who was riding ahead—put it at a gate. It refused, and Trafford called to her to let him open the gate; but Esmeralda threw back some response over her shoulder, and tried the jump again. The horse refused, as before, and so clumsily that he slipped and fell.
Trafford was off, and kneeling beside Esmeralda in an instant. She lay, with closed eyes and outstretched arms, motionless, and for a moment he thought she was killed. He raised her head upon his knee, and laid his hand upon her heart, and felt, with a throb of relief, that it was still beating.