CHAPTER XX.
A ROPE OR SOMETHING.
As they reached the level of the moor and the Drovers' Track, to join which ancient road their path stretched on for yet a mile, they turned, moved by a common impulse, to look down on the green hollow which had been the nest of so great a happiness.
"Emerald, you said, Amaryllis?"
"And blue, Dick, from the sky."
When they had tramped a half-mile or more in silence which seemed to Amaryllis very close communion, Dick spoke; for already he was feeling the stones of the world beneath their feet.
"We put our money on the wrong horse, dear. They didn't suspect—they knew. And they're near us," he said.
"I don't care. If they kill me now, Dick, I don't care."
He agreed—nodding more sympathetically, she thought, than any man before him had ever nodded.
But after another silence, he said: