"Are you hurt?" he demanded. "Tell me, are you hurt?"
"No, no; not in the least."
"Why in the world did you want to drive such a horse? Don't ever take such chances again. I won't have it."
For a few moments Lloyd was too excited to trust herself to talk, and could only stand helplessly to one side, watching Bennett as he stripped off the harness from the dead horse, stowed it away under the seat of the cart, and rolled the cart itself to the edge of the road. Then at length she said, trying to smile and to steady her voice:
"It—it seems to me, Mr. Bennett, you do about—about as you like with my sta-bub-ble."
"Sit down!" he commanded, "you are trembling all over. Sit down on that rock there."
"—and with me," she added, sinking down upon the boulder he had indicated with a movement of his head, his hands busy with the harness.
"I'm sorry I had to do that," he explained; "but there was no help for it—nothing else to do. He would have had you in the canal in another second, if he did not kill you on the way there."
"Poor old Rox," murmured Lloyd; "I was very fond of Rox."
Bennett put himself in her way as she stepped forward. He had the lap-robe over his arm and the whip in his hand.