"W-w-what did she say to that, Betty?"
"She nodded that long head of hers in a terrible way. 'We all suffer,' she growled, 'for the evil that others do.' Do you think I must suffer for what they did?"
"No, no," cried Mark. "Why, Betty, to me you are the princess who l-l-lives for ever and ever, fair and happy."
She smiled.
"I love you when you talk like that," she murmured. "And—— Good gracious me!" She dashed some tears from her eyes and sprang to her feet. "Look here, we have that long strip of gorse to do before lunch. Come on! I'll hop you down the hill. One—two-three—OFF!"
Away she went, laughing gaily, leaving care in the shade, and Mark after her—a boy once more, but with an ache at his heart none the less.
At luncheon Betty speculated upon the nature of the punishment which awaited her, assuring Mark that she did not care a hang, revelling the more joyously in the present, because a cloud lay black upon the future.
Presently they discovered that the sun was declining into the soft haze of the western horizon.
"We must run," cried Betty.
They ran and rested, and then ran again till they came to the sharp incline from the downs into the valley which holds the village. And here bad luck tempted them to link hands and race down a slippery, grassy slope. Perhaps Mark went too fast. Betty fell with a dismal thump, and a poignant note of anguish fluttered up from a crumpled heap of linen.