A short moment intervened. The lady apparently unconscious of the loss she had sustained, tightened the rein upon her palfrey, and with a slight touch of the whip moved out from under the branches of the beech—her horse’s head turned in a direction opposite to that in which the cavalier was approaching.
At first she rode slowly—apparently desirous of being overtaken. Presently she increased the pace; then faster, and faster, until she went at a gallop—as though by a sudden change of thought she had determined to avoid an interview! The thick tresses of her golden hair escaping from the comb swept down upon the croup behind her. The natural red of her cheeks had become heightened to the hue of carmine. It was the suffusion of burning blushes. Her eyes were flashing with a strange excitement in an expression that spoke of something like shame. She had repented of what she had done, and dreaded to wait the consequence of the act!
For all that she was dying to look back, but dared not.
A turn in the road, at length, offered her the opportunity. As she reined her palfrey around the corner, she glanced towards the spot where she had abandoned her glove.
The tableau that saluted her eye was not displeasing. The cavalier, bending down from his saddle, was just lifting the gauntlet upon the point of his glistening rapier!
What would he do with it?
She waited not to see. Her palfrey passed behind the trees, and the horseman was hidden from her sight. On that splendid steed he might easily have overtaken her: but, although listening, as she rode on, she heard no hoof-stroke behind her.
She did not desire to be overtaken. For that day she had submitted herself to sufficient humiliation—self-administered—it is true; but she slackened not the pace, till she has passed through the gates of the park, and sighted the walls of the paternal mansion.