She made no answer, but passing her reins to her right hand, she laid her left hand over his, and so they rode on without a word on either side.
“Is it not strange that a crush and a tumble over a big tree should make one so very—very happy; but I declare to you, Gardy, I never knew my heart so full of delight as at this moment. Tell me, what’s the meaning of it?”
“Gratitude for your escape, Ma Mie; the thankfulness that even the most thoughtless feel for preservation through danger.”
“No, it’s not that; the sort of ecstacy I feel is something quite different from all this. It has nothing to do with peril, and just as little with gratitude. It has more in it of pride—that’s not the word, but it will do—of pride, then, that you made so much account of me.”
“For a moment I thought I had lost you!” said he, and his voice trembled, and his very cheek shook with emotion as he spoke.
“And would the loss have been a deep sorrow—a very deep sorrow?”
He pressed her hand to his heart, and said in a low voice, “The deepest—the heaviest that could befal me!”
“Was it not worth a fall to learn this?” said she, laughingly.
“Nay, rather will it not teach you to take more care of a life of such consequence to others?”
“Don’t say others, Gardy—say one other, and I am content.” As she said this, she drew her hand hurriedly away, for they were already approaching the great entrance, on the terrace of which Grenfell and young Ladarelle were talking and laughing. “Mind, Sir, not a word of my accident!” And with this she sprang to the ground before he could offer his hand, and, hurrying up the steps, disappeared within the building.