But she did not obey Miss Sarah's suggestion that she return home and rest. On winged feet she flew back through the hedge-gap and ordered Ragtime saddled once more; yet when she touched that splendid beast with the crop and sent him at a gallop down the drive, there was no longer any sting in the lash. Even the groom, with critical eye, noticed the difference in the girl's seat that afternoon; for days and days to come he was the better contented with the companionship of horses, which was his lot, in dwelling upon the crazy moods of women. And Miriam Burrell, sighting Barbara's face as the latter wheeled toward the hills, flew from her window to scratch off a note to Garry--her third note that day, for she seemed always omitting most important things which needed saying. "It's come," she scrawled in delighted haste, "and Miss Sarah is a visiting angel from Heaven! . . . When are we going to be married?" Others knew of it almost as soon as she did herself, but knowledge of that did not mar Barbara's rosy contemplation of this new-found, totally unbelievable happiness. Once before she had ridden that road with him alone in her thoughts; now she realized that she had loved him then as she must have loved him always, and marveled at such blindness. Once, on that other day, she had told herself that all ignoble and unworthy comparisons of herself and him were done and gone. Now she did not need such reassurance, when her lips were tremulous. Rest? Pressing steadily into the north that afternoon, first at a gallop, then more and more slowly until Ragtime was picking his own gait, the girl smiled in pity for Miss Sarah and her day which had never dawned. But there was scant room for sadness in her present mood. Tomorrow? She let herself be afraid for an instant, to tremble in delicious mock-terror, because there was nothing for her to fear now in the whole wide world.