But she was quite conscious when she reached her room that the poor Major's misfortune, happening as it had done just beneath her horse's feet, had been a godsend to her.

For a moment the young lord's arm had been round her waist and her head had been upon his shoulder.

And again when she had slipped from her saddle she had felt his embrace.

His fervour to her had been simply the uncontrolled expression of his feeling at the moment,--as one man squeezes another tightly by the hand in any crisis of sudden impulse.

She knew this;--but she knew also that he would probably revert to the intimacy which the sudden emotion had created.