"I have never met a man who understands so much about women as you do,"
she said.
"Thank you, madam," I cried boisterously, and bowed so as to avoid her
eyes. But when I was upright again, they caught mine once more, and
something in them made me tremble.
"Or so little," she whispered, and she was pitifully white and miserable.
If it had not been for what I saw between us--there, on the floor of
crazed and trampled mud, I should have flung my arms around her. But I
could not step over _that_.
"Ta carrish iss ready," cried Donald from the door-sill.
I packed her snugly in the calash and started two dragoons ahead. Bimbo
clucked to his horse and was off. I walked a hundred yards by the side of
the carriage till it was time to whistle for the other dragoons to start.
Then I made Bimbo pull up.
The young moon was battling with great stacks of clouds, but just at that
moment won a brief victory, and gave me a clear view of Margaret. She put
out her hand, which she had not yet gloved, and I took it in mine, bowed
my head over it, and kissed it.
"Good night, Oliver," she whispered.
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