“I won’t speak of it if you don’t wish it,” she said softly, “but I shall always remember it and shall always be very, very grateful.” She turned away from him, clasped her hands over one knee and looked off across the sloping lawn and meadow. Then: “I fear, though, you don’t believe very strongly in our――in my gratitude after――after my rudeness to you.” Her head was turned farther away until he could see only one cheek, on which the colour came and went as she spoke. “Rudeness!” he exclaimed. “Great heavens, please don’t say that! You weren’t rude enough! You――――” “I behaved very childishly,” she continued, without, however, turning toward him. “I want to ask your pardon and I want you to know that――that my behaviour didn’t mean that I wasn’t grateful to you all the time. We――we’re rather barbarians down here, Mr. North, and have tempers!” “Miss Ryerson! Margaret! I beg your pardon,” he caught himself up. “But please don’t talk about asking my pardon. I ought to have asked yours long ago! I do now! I behaved like a brute that day. I know I did. But――but won’t you please believe that I didn’t mean any disrespect? You must believe that! Won’t you?” “Yes,” she answered instantly. “I didn’t believe otherwise. And you――and Phil――were right in not wanting me to ride Cardinal back. I don’t know what had gotten into me; I’m not always so mean and stubborn. And――and you――Phil says you rode breakneck down the hill after me. You might have been killed!” There was a little pause, during which Margaret continued to watch her interlacing fingers, and John, rather pale of face, looked hungrily at the rounded cheek on which the sun threw little flecks of light. “Thank you for that,” she added softly. “And forgive me for my rudeness at――at what was――I understood it afterward, you see――just a sort of joke.” “Joke!” breathed John. He leaned forward and laid one hand over her fingers. They ceased their moving and she turned toward him with wide, startled eyes. “Margaret,” he said softly, “don’t thank me for anything, please. I don’t deserve it. I behaved like a brute! I hurt you when you were nervous, upset, after that danger. Why,” he went on with a sudden drop of his voice which trembled like the hands imprisoned under his own, “why, rather than hurt you, Margaret, I’d――I’d do anything in the world!” She turned her face away with a slow closing of her eyes, and strove to draw her hands from beneath his. “I――I――please――――” “And don’t forgive me because you think it was all a joke, Margaret. It wasn’t, not a bit of it, dear! I kissed your hand because――because I couldn’t help kissing the poor, bruised little thing! I said I loved you because it was God’s truth, Margaret! I do love you――then――before that――now――always! How much, how dearly, I haven’t words to say! I was mean, brutal, if you like, dear, but I wasn’t joking.” He ended with a little break in his voice. His hand slipped away from hers.