"Not yet."
"Look at me now. Do I look like hurting you?" He put up his visor. The softest brown eyes a girl can have trembled over him.
"No—o. Oh!" The negative was drowned in discovery. Prosper followed her gaze. He held up the red stockings.
"Do you know them, child?"
"I know to whom they belong. Are you going to hunt her?"
"Hunt her! I am going to find her. I think she has had hunting enough,
God bless her."
"Yes, she has," said Mellifont gravely.
Prosper stooped in his saddle and laid a hand on her head.
"My dear," said he, "I love that hunted lady beyond everything in the world; I never knew how much until I had lost her. But no wrong will happen to her till she hears me tell her the truth. If you know anything you must not hide it from me."
Mellifont peered up at him through her hair.