"Pardon me, Miss Helen, but it is a little dangerous the speed with which you ride down-hill. I'm afraid your mount is not so sure-footed as she might be.... This road you speak of leads out by Mr. Radwine's cottage into the Lake Drive. It is worse riding than those you have tried."
Helen thought Hayward's apprehensions were creatures of his discomfort in keeping pace with her, and she was nothing more than amused at his attempts to limit the speed to his abilities under pretence of care for her safety. She thought she would give him one more shaking-up to tell her father about—and plunged off down the Radwine road, leaving him to follow as best he might.
Hayward had passed over that cross-road but a few days earlier and he knew its present condition. Helen heard him call to her, but her spirit of mischief was fully aroused at the thought of his bumping along after her, and she gave the mare free rein.
They were going down a longer and steeper hill than any they had passed, near the foot of which the summer rains had washed out the roadway. Hayward, knowing of this dangerous place ahead, and seeing that it was impossible to stop the young woman in his front before she reached it, sent Prince William after the mare under pressure of the spur and with the hope to come up with her in time. He arrived on the very moment of fate. The thundering horse tore alongside the flying mare just as she reached the washed-out road. Either through feminine excitability at being overtaken or because of the defective foot action Hayward had noted, the mare, when she struck the rough road, stumbled and went down. In that instant the open-eyed Prince William cleared the washout with a magnificent stride, and the ex-cavalryman swept his right arm about Helen and lifted her out of the saddle.
Slowly reining in his horse, Hayward brought him to a standstill and gently lowered his astonished young mistress to the ground. She was almost too overcome to stand, and walked unsteadily a few steps before she recovered herself. Hayward had thrown himself off Prince William and was leading him back down the road to where the mare had fallen. She had already picked herself up, minus a saddle and plus a few bruises, and was standing in the road comparatively unhurt but shaking as with an ague.
Hayward approached her quietly and she came eagerly up to him as if to escape from her fears. He looked her over carefully, and finding no serious damage done, set himself about brushing the dust from her with wisps of weeds and grass. Helen came down while he worked with the mare, and watched him some minutes without speaking. She hardly could think of anything civil to say. She knew that she had disobeyed orders and that he had warned her—and that made her angry. The very silence of the man became irritating to her.
When he had done all he could to put the mare in order he picked up Helen's saddle and started to put it on, but stopped to ask whether he should exchange mounts with her.
"No," his young mistress replied. "I've ridden her here and I will ride her home."
The negro put her saddle on the mare while the girl looked on. When he came to buckle the girth he found that the leather tongue was torn off. He lengthened the girth on the other side and proceeded to bore with his pocket-knife a new hole in the short broken tab. Helen's eyes fell at length on the knife. She looked at it uncertainly a few moments, and then lost interest in everything else. Finally she could keep quiet no longer.
"Where did you get that knife, Hayward?" she asked with something like accusation in her voice.