"The Lord Almighty peety the man that gets a wumman like you!" he exclaimed with vehement solemnity. He strode back to his sleigh, leaped upon his load, and lashed his horses into a gallop.
The Duke was perfectly calm. She bowed in her stateliest fashion to Elsie and the doctor, but the twinkle in her eye answered the laughter in the girl's. Then, arranging her basket more carefully on her arm, she passed on her way as if nothing had happened.
Gilbert sprang into his cutter, and the two witnesses of poor Sandy's Waterloo followed his tumultuous retreat up the valley. They were young and light-hearted, and what wonder if one put aside her gravity and the other his troubles, and both laughed all the way to the village?
It was not until they had gained the main highway, and Sandy had disappeared, that they recovered their composure and could speak of other things.
"And you did not get away for your vacation at New Year's," the girl said. "That was too bad."
"No," said Gilbert, suddenly growing somber at the recollection. "Everything conspired against me, it seemed. I couldn't get away."
"Uncle Hughie would say that everything had conspired for you. His theory is the happiest one. He would tell you that if you had gone probably some disastrous circumstance would have followed."
"Perhaps he is right," said the young man meditatively. He could not yet regard his failure to meet Rosalie's demands as anything but a misfortune. And yet, there was that money still in the bank that Martin might have. That was surely a satisfaction.
"Oh, everything seems to me to be guided by the merest chance," he said half bitterly.
The girl shook her head. "I think it seems so only on the surface. There can be no hazard about one's duty. The results are as sure as cause and effect. You know that, Dr. Allen."