"Late?" she repeated incredulously.
Then the look of faintly contemptuous tolerance that sometimes touched her with regard to him passed over her face.
"Oh no; not at all!" she explained. "I'm used to riding in the evening. You see, Polly must be exercised; and I'd rather it was dark, the first time I rode after——"
Her voice faltered.
Milbanke heard the tremor, and, as once before, his sense of personal timidity fled before his spontaneous pity.
"Clodagh," he said suddenly, "allow me to ride with you. I was a fairly good horseman in—in my day."
There was pathos in the deprecating justification; but Clodagh's attention was caught by the words alone.
"You!" she said in blank amazement.
Then something in the crudeness of her tone struck upon her, and she made haste to amend her exclamation.
"Of course it's very, very kind of you," she added awkwardly.