“My sweet little horse,” said she, patting him and throwing her arm round his neck. “I did treat you very ill--very ill indeed. It was soft spongy ground, too, and not fair in any way, and you were not in the least to blame. Do you know, Gardy, it was a mere bit of bark that caught his foot; for, after all, it is not above four feet high, is it?” “I don’t know--I don’t care how high it is. It very nigh cost you your life, and cost _me_ more than I wish to tell;” and he muttered these last words beneath his breath. “You have never helped me to mount, I think, Gardy! Mind, now, don’t touch Cid’s bridle; he won’t bear it. Just give me a slight lift--that’s it; thanks. Oh, how nice to be on the saddle again. If you wouldn’t think very ill of me, I’d ask a favour?” “Anything in the whole world, Ma Mie; what is it?” “Then, like a dear kind Gardy, let me ride him at it again; I’ll do it so quietly--” “Not for a dukedom--not if you went on your knees to beg it. I declare, you can have but little feeling in your heart to ask it. Nay, I didn’t mean to say that, my sweet child; my head is wandering, and I know not what I say.” “I hope you’ll not tell of my disaster, Gardy,” said she, as they rode slowly along towards home. “A fall brings one down at once to the level of all the people who do nothing but fall. Don’t smile; I mean simply what I say as applied to matters of horseflesh, not morals, and promise you’ll not tell of me.” “The doctor must hear of it, certainly.” “No, Gardy, I’ll have no doctor.” “I insist upon it--you shall--and you must, Kate. Surely, when I say it is for my happiness, you will not refuse me.” She made no answer, but passing her reins to her right hand, she laid her left hand over his, and so they rode on without a word on either side. “Is it not strange that a crush and a tumble over a big tree should make one so very--very happy; but I declare to you, Gardy, I never knew my heart so full of delight as at this moment. Tell me, what’s the meaning of it?” “Gratitude for your escape, Ma Mie; the thankfulness that even the most thoughtless feel for preservation through danger.” “No, it’s not that; the sort of ecstacy I feel is something quite different from all this. It has nothing to do with peril, and just as little with gratitude. It has more in it of pride--that’s not the word, but it will do--of pride, then, that you made so much account of me.” “For a moment I thought I had lost you!” said he, and his voice trembled, and his very cheek shook with emotion as he spoke. “And would the loss have been a deep sorrow--a very deep sorrow?” He pressed her hand to his heart, and said in a low voice, “The deepest--the heaviest that could befal me!” “Was it not worth a fall to learn this?” said she, laughingly. “Nay, rather will it not teach you to take more care of a life of such consequence to others?”