Some strength seemed to come to her at that.
"I will live then," she said quite distinctly, "I will, indeed. Thank you, little Pony friend." Then she laid her lovely white head on the green grass and closed her dim eyes.
"You are too beautiful to die," I whinnied ever so softly, then I looked at the human beings. They didn't know I had spoken a word to her. Bless their dear hearts!—clever, so clever, but some things they don't know.
Mr. Devering and I were just leaving the doe, when a man suddenly stood beside us. I don't know whether he came from the east, west, north or south. He just seemed to drop down among us, and at his heels was an equally gliding bloodhound.
The warden was like his son, but more French. He was dark, slender, silent, and had short grizzled hair and black eyes more piercing even than Mr. Devering's.
He never said a word, he just bent down and touched the doe's head. She opened her eyes and fixed them on him with a wonderful expression. They were talking to each other without a word being said. Then she closed her eyes, and he rose.
"My Father," said Denty in French, "they've got her at last!"
The warden said nothing. He just stared at his son in such a painful way that it made me shudder.
I spoke to the dog, but he paid no attention to me whatever. He just pressed forward a little in front of his master, and in a tender way began licking the red spots from the doe's white coat. She was his playmate and friend.