"You have to choose between doing what I ask and watching me pitch it into the beck. I'm a rather determined person. It would be a pity to throw the thing away, particularly as the rain hasn't got through it yet."
She yielded, and he held the jacket while she put it on.
"There's another thing," he added. "I'm going to carry you for the next hundred yards, or possibly farther."
"No," replied Evelyn firmly. "On that point, my determination is as strong as yours."
Vane made a sign of acquiescence.
"You may have your way for a minute; I expect that will be long enough."
He was correct. Evelyn moved forward a pace or two, and then stopped with the skirt she had gathered up brushing the quivering emerald moss, and her boots, which were high ones, hidden in the mire. She had some difficulty in pulling them out. Then Vane coolly picked her up.
"All you have to do is to keep still for the next few minutes," he informed her in a most matter-of-fact voice.
Evelyn did not move, though she recognized that had he shown any sign of self-conscious hesitation she would at once have shaken herself loose. As it was, the fact that he appeared perfectly at ease and unaware that he was doing anything unusual was reassuring. Then as he plodded forward she wondered at his steadiness, for she remembered that when she had once fallen heavily when nailing up a clematis her father, who was a vigorous man, had found it difficult to carry her upstairs. Vane had never carried any woman in his arms before, but he had occasionally had to pack—as it is termed in the West—hundred-and-forty-pound flour bags over a rocky portage, and, though the comparison did not strike him as a happy one, he thought the girl was not quite so heavy as that. He was conscious of a curious thrill and a certain stirring of his blood, but this, he decided, must be sternly ignored. His task was not an easy one, and he stumbled once or twice, but he accomplished it and set the girl down safely on firmer ground.
"Now," he said, "there's only the drop to the dale, but we must endeavor to keep out of the beck."