“Will this never stop!” gasped Bruce, huskily. “God, I wish I had you safe home!”
The tremulous tensity in his voice set her heart to leaping with an unrestraint yet wilder. But she did not answer.
Suddenly Nelly stumbled in a gully and Katherine pitched forward from the saddle. She would have fallen, had not a pair of strong arms closed about her in mid-air.
“Katherine—Katherine!” Bruce cried, distracted. Nelly righted herself and Katherine regained her seat, but Bruce still kept his arm about her. “Tell me—are you hurt?” he demanded.
She felt the arms around her trembling with intensity.
“No,” she said with a strange choking.
“Oh, Katherine—Katherine!” he burst out. “If you only knew how I love you!”
What she felt could not crystallize itself into words.
“Do you love me?” he asked huskily.
Just then there was a flash of lightning. It showed her his upturned face, appealing, tender, passion-wrought. A wild, exultant thrill swept through her. Without thinking, without speaking, her tingling arm reached out, of its own volition as it were, and closed about his neck, and she bent down and kissed him.