"I certainly will. Goodbye, till Christmas. Don't forget. I shall expect you to keep your word."
"I will keep my word," he said. "Goodbye till Christmas."
He rode away, laughing and chuckling to himself. If Mary had been a fiasco, this was a real joke. A real, unexpected joke.
His horse travelled with quick, strong, rhythmic movement, inland, away from the sea. At the last ridge he turned and saw the pale-blue ocean full of light. Then he rode over the crest and down the silent grey bush, in which he had once been lost.