“To tell you the truth,” repeated Sarah coldly, “she had a fright, and the bandboxes broke loose.”
“What frightened her?”
“A Headless Horseman,” said Sarah.
He was frowning again. “Headless Horseman? Fiddlesticks!”
“Very well,” said Sarah, as one making a concession, “then it was a dragon.”
“I think,” said Sir Tristram in a very level voice, “that it will be better if I see my cousin and hear her story from her own lips.”
“Not if you are going to approach it in this deplorable spirit,” replied Miss Thane. “I dare say you would tell her there are no such things as dragons or headless horsemen!”
“Well?”
Miss Thane cast down her eyes to hide the laughter in them, and replied in a saddened tone: “When she told me the whole I thought it impossible that anyone could be so devoid of all sensibility, but now that I have seen you I realize that she spoke no less than the melancholy truth. A man who could remain unaffected by the thought of a young girl, dressed in white, all alone, and in a tumbril—”
His brow cleared; he gave a short laugh. “Does that rankle? But really I am past the age of being impressed by such absurdities.”