"Oh!" Ruth shivered. "Do you mean that it would actually break them?" she asked in her ignorance. He laughed. "Well, that's possible; but I meant the skin of the knee." "That would heal, surely?" He laughed again. "A horse is like a woman--" he began, but checked himself of a sudden. She waited for him to continue, and he went on, "It knocks everything off the price, you see. Some won't own a horse that has once been down; and any knowledgeable man can tell, at a glance. It is the first thing he looks for." She considered for a moment. "But if the mark had been a scratch only-- and the scratch had healed--might she not be as good a horse as ever?" "It would damage her price, none the less." "But you are not a horse-dealer. Would _you_ value a horse by its selling price?" He laughed. "I am afraid," he owned, "that I should be ruled by other men's opinions. Your connoisseur does not collect chipped chinaware. . . . There's the chance, too, that the mare, having once fallen, will throw herself again by the same trick." "And women are like horses," thought Ruth as they rode on. The night was paling about them, and she watched the rolling champaign as little by little it took shape, emerging from the morning mist and passing from monochrome into faint colours: for albeit the upper sky was clear as ever, mist filled the hollows of the hills and rolled up their sides like a smoke. "Look!" commanded Sir Oliver, reining up and turning in his saddle. He pointed with his horse-whip. Behind them, over a tree-clad hill, lay a long purple cloud; and above it, while he pointed, the sun thrust its edge as it were the rim of a golden paten. Ruth wheeled her mare about, to face the spectacle, and at that moment the cloud parted horizontally as though a hand had ripped the veil across. A flood of gold poured through the rent, dazzling her eyes. The sun mounted and swam free: the upper portion of the veil floated off like a wisp and drifted down the wind. Where the glory had shone, it lingered through tint after tint--rose, pale lemon, palest sea-green-- and so passed into azure and became one with the rest of the heavens. Sir Oliver withdrew his eyes and sought hers. "When I find the need of faith," he said, "I shall turn sun-worshipper." "You have never found that need?" she asked slowly. "Never," he confessed. "And you?" "Never as a need. I mean," she explained, "that though I always despised religion--yes, always, even before I came to hate it--I never doubted that some wisdom must be at watch and at work all around me, ordering the sun and stars, for instance, and separating right from wrong. I just cannot understand how any one can do without a faith of that sort: it's as necessary as breath."