This thought passed away and troubled him no more as they sat talking of the strange way of their "meeting on the run," as she said.
"There isn't a horse in a thousand that could have caught up with me that day."
"Not one in thousands," he amended, with due gratitude to Whetstone.
"I expected you'd be riding him today, Duke."
"He backed into a fire," said he uneasily, "and burned off most of his tail. He's no sight for a lady in his present shape."
She laughed, looking at him shrewdly, as if she believed it to be a joke to cover something that he didn't want her to know.
"But you promised to give him to me, Duke, when he rested up a little."
"I will," he declared earnestly, getting hold of her hand where it lay in the grass between them. "I'll give you anything I've got, Grace, from the breath in my body to the blood in my heart!"
She bent her head, her face rosy with her mounting blood.
"Would you, Duke?" said she, so softly that it was not much more than the flutter of the wings of words.