“Nonsense, Hartley, she is as quiet as a lamb.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” said the curate, who looked rather anxiously at a handsome, weedy grey cob just led round to the front.
His sisters were standing ready to go and make a call, and his brow wrinkled a little as he noted a peculiar fidgety expression about the mare’s ears.
“Why, Hartley, how foolish you are!” cried Leo. “You stop indoors reading till you are as nervous as Mrs Berens.”
“Eh? Yes. Well, I suppose I am,” said the curate good-humouredly. “But be careful; I’m always a little uncomfortable about strange mares. Will you have an extra rein?”
“Absurd!” said Leo. “There, you shall be humoured. Tell him to buckle it lower down.”
The girl looked very handsome and animated, and, since the scene in the wood with Tom Candlish, had been so penitent and patient that her brother had shrunk from checking her in any way.
The mare had duly arrived, and, apparently bending to her brother’s will, Leo had patiently seen it put in harness—degraded, as she called it—and as it went very well they were going on the present morning drive.
Hartley Salis tried to hide his anxiety, and turned to chat with Mary, who looked rather pale—the consequence of a headache, as she said; and as he talked he felt more and more between the horns of a dilemma.
Mary did not want to go, he knew. He did not want her to go, but, paradoxical as it may sound, he did want her to go. For choice he would have gone himself; but he knew that if he did Leo would look upon it as distrust—not of her power to manage the new mare, but of her word. For she had as good as promised him that she would see Tom Candlish no more, and he felt that he was bound to show in every way possible that he enjoyed a confidence that he really did not feel. With Mary to bear Leo company he knew that she was safe, and even that would bear the aspect of espionage; but the girl had accepted the position, and they were ready to start.