"Maybe. He surely has strange passion for horses. I think I understand better than I used to. I owned a couple of racers once. They were just animals to me, I guess. But Blanco Sol!"
"Do you love him?" asked Nell; and now a warm, blue flash of eyes swept his face.
"Do I? Well, rather."
"I'm glad. Sol has been finer, a better horse since you owned him. He loves you, Dick. He's always watching for you. See him raise his head. That's for you. I know as much about horses as Dad or Laddy any day. Sol always hated Diablo, and he never had much use for Dad."
Dick looked up at her.
"It'll be—be pretty hard to leave Sol—when I go away."
Nell sat perfectly still.
"Go away?" she asked, presently, with just the faintest tremor in her voice.
"Yes. Sometimes when I get blue—as I am to-day—I think I'll go. But, in sober truth, Nell, it's not likely that I'll spend all my life here."
There was no answer to this. Dick put his hand softly over hers; and, despite her half-hearted struggle to free it, he held on.