And rather miserably, he said for the third
time:
"Why?"
But folding her hands away behind her back she answered gently:
"My dear, how should I know why?"
She was calmly exposed to his embrace if he had only dared; but he did
not dare, and went back to the loose-box wall. Biting his finger, he
stared at her gloomily. She was stroking the muzzle of her horse; and
a sort of dry rage began whisking and rustling in his heart. She had
refused him--Harbinger! He had not known, had not suspected how much he
wanted her. How could there be anybody else for him, while that young,
calm, sweet-scented, smiling thing lived, to make his head go round, his
senses ache, and to fill his heart with longing! He seemed to himself at
that moment the most unhappy of all men.
"I shall not give you up," he muttered.
Barbara's answer was a smile, faintly curious, compassionate, yet almost
grateful, as if she had said:
"Thank you--who knows?"
And rather quickly, a yard or so apart, and talking of horses, they
returned to the house.
It was about noon, when, accompanied by Courtier, she rode forth.
The Sou-Westerly spell--a matter of three days--had given way before
radiant stillness; and merely to be alive was to feel emotion. At a
little stream running beside the moor under the wild stone man, the
riders stopped their horses, just to listen, and, inhale the day.
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