our from his lips, all
the light from his eyes. "My God! My God!" he cried, a short, sharp cry,
that beat up the Tigmores and broke and splintered into the big
loneliness futilely. Then he jerked his horse about abruptly. "We must
go back now," he said.

But the girl, who had been watching, turned her eyes from him and held
her horse still for a short moment. The glory of the hills came on
across the wide park to her and enfolded her, met in kind by the
radiance of her wonderful hair, her sunny eyes, her glowing skin. The
joy of the night before, the morning's passionate grief, the ingenuous
hope and prayer in her ride after Steering, the sweet, anxious torture
of the journey to Salome Park were all giving place to a large,
impersonal comprehension of the conflict in Steering's soul. She had
known before that there was trouble brewing between him and her father.
She knew now, past all doubting, that he loved her, knew it from his
face, his voice. And even while her heart filled and quivered with
knowing it, some higher power of divination made her know, too, that he
was caught between his love of her and his difficulty with her father in
an inexplicable, soul-shaking way.

When Steering, a few feet below her, turned again towards her, she
looked finer, fairer, more immortally young and strong than he had ever
seen her look. She rode down to him fearlessly and put her hand out.
"Sometimes the thing to do is just to stand steady," she said, "isn't
that it?"--bridging all the unspoken thought and feeling between them,
understanding, helping.

He clung to her hand, and its answering pressure was that of a
comrade's, strong and reassuring. "Miss Madeira," he said, at last,
simply, "things are so bad with me that if I don't stand steady and face
them exactly as they come, not giving in an inch anywhere along the
line, I shan't be able to stand at all."

"Ah, but you will stand that way--steady," she said, and drew her hand
from his, and led the way homeward. She had accepted her fate to wait
and endure while he "faced things."

They went back into the sunset together, almost silent. Far and wide
rolled the hills in their flaunting glory, and, now and again, the
girl's breath trembled and stung her,--that tidal sense of colour
leaping and rioting within her, perhaps. Now and again the man's jaws
set together more firmly. When they talked at all it was of little
things.

"Why didn't I ever meet you at Miss Gossamer's?"