“Molly strained her shoulder at the bank down by your outfields,” he returned, stopping in front of them, his handsome head glossy in the sun as he lifted his hat. “So I came to ask you if I might put her in your stable instead of taking her all the way home. I don’t know how it happened; slipped, I fancy; she didn’t fall.” “I knew you’d do it some day. You go at your banks too fast.” Cristiane frowned as she touched the mare’s shoulder with knowledgable fingers. “Poor Molly! It’s a shame.” Mr. Cylmer was annoyed. Few men rode with more judgment than he, and he knew it. “You needn’t think I like it, any more than Molly,” he returned, a trifle crossly. “Come along to the stables,” Cristiane said. “The sooner she is seen to the better. I’m glad you brought her. Come on, Ismay.” She had had time to recollect that Miles, who had forgotten her in his sorrow, could remember now that she could be useful. She marched on in front, leading the limping mare. Ismay and Cylmer were left to follow. “You’ve cut your hand,” said Ismay, and her voice fell softly on his ears, that Cristiane’s words had left tingling. “It’s bleeding.” “It’s all right,” he replied shamefacedly. “I was stooping to make a gap in the hedge for Molly, and she trod on it.” It was cut and bruised so that it ached abominably. He winced with pain as he tried to move it. Ismay’s handkerchief, white, filmy, fine, and smelling of nothing but fresh linen, was out in a second. “There is no sense in getting yourself all horrid with it,” she said practically. “Hold out your hand.” There was an ugly circular jag across the back of the fingers, where the horse’s shoe had come. “It’s too beastly,” he said. He did not want her to look at the mingled blood and dirt that covered his hand. But she only laughed, a little low laugh, like a woman comforting the hurt of a child. “Hold it out,” she repeated, and through the cool linen he could feel the touch of her slim, deft fingers, a touch that somehow made him thrill. Cristiane had never even seen his hand! She stood by while he and a groom saw to Molly, and then as they turned away the bandage caught her eye. “What a baby you are, Miles!” she laughed. “Fancy binding up your whole hand for a cut!” “It’s smashed flat,” he returned quietly. “And you’re an unsympathetic little wretch. By the way, didn’t I meet a stranger driving down your avenue?” “He isn’t a stranger,” she retorted. “It was Mr. Wray, a friend of--father’s.” Her lips quivered suddenly. “Wray? I never heard of him”--soberly. Cristiane stamped her foot. “Well, you hear now!” she cried. “Ismay has been horrid about him, and now I suppose you’re going to be; but I won’t stay and hear it. She can tell you why”--with a great sob--“why he came!” and before the astonished Cylmer could breathe, she had run away like a hare, in a very tempest of tears. “What’s the matter with her? She is not at all like herself!” he exclaimed.