The old people and Leonard believed that Amy was not pleased with the idea of Burt's going away, but they felt that she was a little unreasonable, since the young fellow was rather to be commended for wishing to take life more seriously. But her words rankled in Burt's mind. He felt that she understood him better than the others, and that he was not winning respect from her. In the afternoon he saw her, with Alf and Johnnie, starting for the chestnut-trees, and although she passed not far away she gave him only a slight greeting, and did not stop for a little merry banter, as usual. The young fellow was becoming very unhappy, and he felt that his position was growing intolerable. That Amy should be cold toward him, or, indeed, toward any one, was an unheard-of thing, and he knew that she must feel that there was good reason for her manner. "And is there not?" he asked himself, bitterly. "What are she and Miss Hargrove thinking about me?"
The more he thought upon the past the more awkward and serious appeared his dilemma, and his long Western journey, which at first he had welcomed as promising a diversion of excitement and change, now began to appear like exile. He dreaded to think of the memories he must take with him; still more he deprecated the thoughts he would leave behind him. His plight made him so desperate that he suddenly left the orchard where he was gathering apples, went to the house, put on his riding-suit, and in a few moments was galloping furiously away on his black horse. With a renewal of hope Webb watched his proceedings, and with many surmises, Amy, from a distant hillside, saw him passing at a break-neck pace.
CHAPTER LIII
BURT'S RESOLVE
For the first two or three miles Burt rode as if he were trying to leave care behind him, scarcely heeding what direction he took. When at last he reined his reeking horse he found himself near the entrance of the lane over which willows met in a Gothic arch. He yielded to the impulse to visit the spot which had seen the beginning of so fateful an acquaintance, and had not gone far when a turn in the road revealed a group whose presence almost made his heart stand still for a moment. Miss Hargrove had stopped her horse on the very spot where he had aided her in her awkward predicament. Her back was toward him, and her great dog was at her side, looking up into her face, as if in mute sympathy with his fair mistress.
Hope sprang up in Burt's heart. She could not be there with bowed head if she despised him. Her presence seemed in harmony with that glance by which, when weak and unnerved after escaping from deadly peril, she had revealed possibly more than gratitude to the one who had rescued her. His love rose like an irresistible tide, and he resolved that before he left his home Amy and Miss Hargrove should know the whole truth, whatever might be the result. Meanwhile he was rapidly approaching the young girl, and the dog's short bark of recognition was her first intimation of Hurt's presence. Her impulse was to fly, but in a second she saw the absurdity of this course, and yet she was greatly embarrassed, and would rather have been discovered by him at almost any other point of the globe. She was going to the city on the morrow, and as she had drawn rein on this spot and realized the bitterness of her disappointment, tears would come. She wiped them hastily away, but dreaded lest their traces should be seen.
Turning her horse, she met Burt with a smile that her moist eyes belied, and said: "I'm glad you do not find me in such an awkward plight as when we first met here. I've been giving my horse a rest. Do you not want a gallop?" and away like the wind she started homeward.
Burt easily kept at her side, but conversation was impossible. At last he said: "My horse is very tired, Miss Hargrove. At this pace you will soon be home, and I shall feel that you are seeking to escape from me. Have I fallen so very low in your estimation?"
"Why," she exclaimed, in well-feigned surprise, as she checked her horse, "what have you done that you should fall in my estimation?"
"I shall tell you before very long," he said, with an expression that seemed almost tragic.