“Drink this,” he said. “It will do you good.”
The wine revived her, and in a few minutes she was so far recovered as to be able to sit up and discuss matters with him.
“I am quite well now,” she said. “But how am I to get home? Poor papa! What a state he will be in when he hears! Since my horse is dead I suppose I must try to walk.”
“You will do nothing of the kind,” Godfrey replied, firmly. “I will lift you into the saddle and you must try and ride my horse. If we can find a village near here, you can remain there until a carriage is sent from the Court to fetch you.”
“As I have proved myself incompetent I suppose I must obey you,” she answered, with a touch of her old spirit. “But what is to be done with my own poor beast?”
“I will arrange about him when I have attended to your comfort,” he said, and then assisted her to rise and lifted her into the saddle. For the first hundred yards or so they walked almost in silence. She was the first to speak.
“Mr. Henderson,” she said, looking down at him, “I owe you an apology. I was rude to you the other day, and I laughed at you when you told me this morning that you did not like my new horse. Events have proved that you were right. Will you forgive me?”
“I have nothing to forgive,” he answered; “but you can have no idea how nervous I was this morning when I saw how that brute behaved.”
“Why should you have bothered yourself about me?” she asked, not, however, with quite her usual confidence.