an exulting human thing
as it swept about them.

CHAPTER XLIX

AT STORNHAM AND AT BROADMORLANDS

The exulting wind had swept the clouds away, and the moon rode in a dark
blue sea of sky, making the night light purely clear, when they drew
a little apart, that they might better see the wonderfulness in each
other's faces. It was so mysteriously great a thing that they felt near
to awe.

"I fought too long. I wore out my body's endurance, and now I am quaking
like a boy. Red Godwyn did not begin his wooing like this. Forgive me,"
Mount Dunstan said at last.

"Do you know," with lovely trembling lips and voice, "that for
long--long--you have been unkind to me?"

It was merely human that he should swiftly enfold her again, and answer
with his lips against her cheek.

"Unkind! Unkind! Oh, the heavenly woman's sweetness of your telling me
so--the heavenly sweetness of it!" he exclaimed passionately and
low. "And I was one of those who are 'by the roadside everywhere,' an
unkempt, raging beggar, who might not decently ask you for a crust."

"It was all wrong--wrong!" she whispered back to him, and he poured
forth the tenderest, fierce words of confession and prayer, and she
listened, drinking them in, with now and then a soft sob pressed against
the roughness of the enrapturing tweed. For a space they had both
forgotten her hurt, because there are other things than terror which
hypnotise pain. Mount Dunstan was to be praised for remembering it
first. He must take her back to Stornham and her sister without further
delay.

"I will put your saddle on Anstruthers' horse, or mine, and lift you to
your seat. There is a farmhouse about two miles away, where I will take
you first for food and warmth. Perhaps it would be well for you to
stay there to rest for an hour or so, and I will send a message to Lady
Anstruthers."

"I will go to the place, and eat and drink what you advise," she
answered. "But I beg you to take me back to Rosalie without delay. I
feel that I must see her."

"I feel that I must see her, too," he said. "But for her--God bless
her!" he added, after his sudden pause.

Betty knew that the exclamation meant strong feeling, and that somehow
in the past hours Rosalie had awakened it. But it was only when, after
their refreshment at the farm, they had taken horse again and were
riding homeward together, that she heard from him what had passed
between them.

"All that has led to this may seem the