"Because she gave me the run of my life. She was a good sport, that girl. I couldn't shake her off; I took to a taxi and she after me in another; my taxi broke down in the suburbs and I started across country, she after me. And the last I saw of her was just after I leaped a hedge and she was coming over it after me—a wonderful athletic young figure in midair silhouetted against the sky line. . . . That was the last I saw of her. I fancy she must have pulled up dead beat—or perhaps she came a cropper."
"She did," said the girl in a low voice.
"Is that so?" he said, interested. "Hope it didn't damage her."
"She broke her thigh."
"Oh, that's too bad!" he exclaimed. "If I'd guessed any such thing I'd have come back. . . . The poor little thing! I mean that, though she was nearly six feet, I seem to think of her as little—and, of course, I'm six—two and a half. . . . Good little sport, that Diana girl! She got over it all right, I hope."
"It lamed her for life, Lord Marque."
Shocked, for a moment he could find no words to characterise his feelings. Then:
"Oh, dammitall! I say, it's a rotten shame, isn't it? And all on account of me—that superb young thing taking hedges like a hunter! Oh, come now, you know I—it hurts me all the way through. I wish I'd let her catch me! What would she have done to me? I wouldn't mind being pulled about a bit—or anything—if it would have prevented her injury. By gad, you know, I'd even have eaten her plum cake, frosting and all, to have saved her such a fate."
The girl's eyes searched his. "That was not the most tragic part of it, Lord Marque."
"God bless us! Was there anything more?"