Olivia fought down her strange shyness—strange because it had never until now attacked her in the presence of any man.
“Was it not?” she said, in a low voice. “I thought it was a very reasonable proposition.”
He shook his head, still with the same grave smile.
“Some of the worst men have been conspicuous by their courage as well as their crimes. There was a convict the other day who stood up on behalf of a warder who had been attacked by the rest of the gang, some fifteen in number. When they came to inquire into the man’s antecedents they found that he, who had defended his keeper at the risk of his own life, had been sentenced to penal servitude for a particularly bad case of manslaughter. That’s a modern instance. Ancient history is full of examples of bad men who have exhibited, not once, but many times, extraordinary courage—have even done braver things than stopping a small pony,” and he smiled.
“Ah!” grunted Alford, “I thought it was coming to that. Mr. Faradeane always tries to make out as it was nothing at all; and look at his forehead,” and he pointed to the scar.
Olivia raised her eyes to it, and met his grave, sad, half-smiling gaze, beneath which her own drooped instantly.
“I am afraid you won’t succeed in persuading me that I am even a second-rate hero, Alford,” he said. “How is Bessie this morning?”
Alford told him that she was much better, and Mr. Faradeane turned as if to go, when a sudden impulse seized Olivia, and, falteringly, she said:
“I—I am so sorry for what occurred yesterday at the picnic, Mr. Faradeane.”
He stopped and looked at her absently for a moment, as if the incident had escaped his memory; then he said: