"I don't hate you!" Rada's letter began quite abruptly. "Indeed I don't, Mr. Clithero, and I was a little beast to say I did, and I am writing to you now because my conscience pricks me. You were very good--awfully good--to me about Castor, and I am grateful to you, I really am. I know how you insisted on giving the colt back to my father, and the terms you exacted from him. I don't believe you bought Castor out of any malice towards me, and I only said so because I was in a temper and couldn't control my tongue. Then you would insist upon my being an angel, a paragon of virtue, when I was feeling myself a wicked little devil--and that was silly of you, you know--you ought to understand women better. "But I feel I want to be friends with you, Mr. Clithero, and that is why I am writing. I haven't got so many that I can afford to part with one. We are rivals in a way, and since I have got Castor back, I do think I stand the best chance of winning the Derby first. As far as that part of our bet goes--since you will insist upon looking at it as a bet--I have the advantage. But, then, it wasn't fair to you from the start. I spoke, knowing that I had got Castor, while you didn't even know that I had registered my colours. That was just like me, so I won't attempt to excuse myself. "But since you are so eager to win a Derby, and prove me wrong in what I said upon the coach, I do hope you will be successful. You gave yourself five years, you remember, so you need not grudge me Castor next June. Only I don't want you to go on spending a lot of money over what was only, after all, a silly speech. Wouldn't it be better for me to retract every word I said, and for us both to forget all about it?" "Poor Rada!" mused Mostyn, smiling as he read. "She little knows, she little guesses why I have taken up racing so keenly. I wonder what she'll say later on when she sees me throwing my money about right and left--in order to put it in my pocket, as 'Old Rory' would say. She'll think I'm doing it only out of bravado, and just because I want to get even with her. She'll think me a silly young fool," he added, rather ruefully, "but I can't help it if she does. I won't tell the truth, even to her, until I've succeeded in my task. Then I don't mind who knows." A few minutes ago Mostyn had been telling himself that he must put Rada out of mind altogether; now, as a consequence of her letter, he found himself half unconsciously contemplating what he should say to her upon their next meeting. Their ways were not to lie so far apart, after all. The girl did not hate him, and it was only his colossal innocence which had made him think she did. Mostyn was beginning to learn his lesson.