He leaned a little nearer, his heart climbing, as if it meant to smother him and cut him short in that crowning moment of his dream.
"I'd have gone to the end of the world to find you, Grace," he said, his voice shaking as if he had a chill, his hands cold, his face hot, a tingling in his body, a sound in his ears like bells. "I want to tell you how——"
"Wait, Duke—I want to hear it all—but wait a minute. There's something I want to ask you to do for me. Will you do me a favor, Duke, a simple favor, but one that means the world and all to me?"
"Try me," said he, with boundless confidence.
"It's more than giving me your horse, Duke; a whole lot more than that, but it'll not hurt you—you can do it, if you will."
"I know you wouldn't ask me to do anything that would reflect on my honesty or honor," he said, beginning to do a little thinking as his nervous chill passed.
"A man doesn't—when a man cares—" She stopped, looking away, a little constriction in her throat.
"What is it, Grace?" pressing her hand encouragingly, master of the situation now, as he believed.
"Duke"—she turned to him suddenly, her eyes wide and luminous, her heart going so he could see the tremor of its vibrations in the lace at her throat—"I want you to lend me tomorrow morning, for one day, just one day, Duke—five hundred head of Vesta Philbrook's cattle."
"That's a funny thing to ask, Grace," said he uneasily.