She looked at him for a few moments, evidently supposing that he intended to go to Harbour Island to wait there for his ship. If that were so, it seemed that she felt no further responsibility about her conduct to him. His heart sank to see that her joy in the spring and the morning was such that the thought of parting did not apparently grieve her much.
In a moment more her eyes flashed at him with the laughter at his expense which he knew so well; she tried not to laugh as she spoke, but could not help it.
"I have been visiting the band of men who were going to murder you the night you came. Would you like to see them?"
"If you will take care of me."
As she turned and rode before him he heard her laughing.
"There," she said, stopping and pointing to the ground—"there is the place where the quicksand was. I have not gone over it this morning. Sometimes they last from one season to another; sometimes they change themselves in a few days. I was dreadfully frightened when we began to sink, but it was you who saved the pony."
"Don't," said Caius—"don't attempt to make the best of me. I would rather be laughed at." He spoke lightly, without feeling, and that seemed to please her.
"I think," she said candidly, "we behaved very badly; but it was O'Shea's fault—I only enjoyed it. And I don't see what else we could have done, because those two French sailors had to watch if anyone came to steal from the wreck, and they were going to help us so far as to go to the sheds on the cliff for boards to get up the cart; but O'Shea could not have stayed all night with the bags unless I had left him my coat as well as his own."
"You might have trusted me," said Caius. Still he spoke with no sensibility; she grew more at her ease.
"O'Shea wouldn't; and I couldn't control O'Shea. And then we had to meet so often, that I could not bear that you should know I had worn a man's coat. I had to do it, for I couldn't drive home any other way." Here a pause, and her mind wandered to another recollection. "Those men we met brought us word that one of my friends was so ill; I had to hurry to him. In my heart I thought you would not respect me because I had worn a man's coat; and because—— Yes, it was very naughty of me indeed to behave as I did in the water that summer. Even then I did try to get O'Shea to let me walk with you, but he wouldn't."