He stared up at her white figure.
"No, I could not. Don't you suppose I tried?"
"I suppose you did," she admitted, and went back to her seat.
The June night was very quiet. Once a sleepy bird stirred in the honeysuckle vines and chirped through the dark. Far below the throb of a motor passed down the road, dying away again to leave silence. Suddenly Emily Ffrench hid her face on the arm of her chair and the tears overflowed.
There was no consciousness of time while that inarticulate passion of dread spent itself. But it was nearly half an hour later when she started up at the echo of a light step on the gravel path, dashing her handkerchief across her eyes.
It was incredible, but it was true: Lestrange himself was standing before her at the foot of the low stairs, the moonlight glinting across his uncovered bronze head and bright, clear face.
"I beg pardon for trespass, Miss Ffrench," he said, "but your cousin tells me he has been saying a great deal of nonsense to you about this race, and that you were so very good as to feel some concern regarding it. Really, I had to run up and set that right; I couldn't leave you to be annoyed by Mr. Ffrench's nerves. Will you forgive me?"
Like sun through a mist his blithe voice cleaved through her distress. Before the tranquil sanity of his regard, her painted terrors suddenly showed as the artificial canvas scenes of a stage, unreal, untrue.
"It was like you to come," she answered, with a shaking sigh that was half sob. "I was frightened, yes."
"There is no cause. A dozen other men take the same chance as Rupert and I; the driver who alternates with me, for instance. This is our life."