er her, God knows;
and it would seem that he was swearing in horse fashion that she should
not conquer him."

When he was first bought and brought home, Mistress Anne turned ashy at
the sight of him, and in her heart of hearts grieved bitterly that it had
so fallen out that his Grace of Osmonde had been called away from town by
high and important matters; for she knew full well, that if he had been
in the neighbourhood, he would have said some discreet and tender word of
warning to which her ladyship would have listened, though she would have
treated with disdain the caution of any other man or woman. When she
herself ventured to speak, Clorinda looked only stern.

"I have ridden only ill-tempered beasts all my life, and that for the
mere pleasure of subduing them," she said. "I have no liking for a horse
like a bell-wether; and if this one should break my neck, I need battle
with neither men nor horses again, and I shall die at the high tide of
life and power; and those who think of me afterwards will only remember
that they loved me--that they loved me."

But the horse did not kill her, nor she it. Day after day she stood by
while it was taken from its stall, many a time dealing with it herself,
because no groom dare approach; and then she would ride it forth, and in
Hyde Park force it to obey her; the wondrous strength of her will, her
wrist of steel, and the fierce, pitiless punishment she inflicted,
actually daunting the devilish creature's courage. She would ride from
the encounter, through two lines of people who had been watching her--and
some of them found themselves following after her, even to the Park
gate--almost awed as they looked at her, sitting erect and splendid on
the fretted, anguished beast, whose shining skin was covered with lather,
whose mouth tossed blood-flecked foam, and whose great eye was so
strangely like her own, but that hers glowed with the light of triumph,
and his burned with the agonised protest of the vanquished. At such
times there was somewhat of fear in the glances that followed her beauty,
which almost seemed to blaze--her colour was so rich, the curve of her
red mouth so imperial, the poise of her head, with its loosening coils of
velvet black hair, so high.

"It is good for me that I do this," she said to Anne, with a short laugh,
one day. "I was growing too soft--and I have need now for all my power.
To fight with the demon in this beast, rouses all in me that I have