“Hope you enjoyed my serenade.  Come along!  There’s no time to waste.  Jakko turned red some minutes ago.  Were you asleep?”

Muriel admitted the fact.

“And dreaming of me,” he rattled on, “as was sweet and proper?”

She did not answer, and he laughed like a boy, rudely but not insolently.

“Didn’t I know it?  Jump up!  We’re going to have a glorious gallop.  I’ve brought some slabs of chocolate to keep you from starvation.  Ready?  Heave ho!  My dear girl, you’re disgracefully light still.  Why don’t you eat more?”

“You’re as thin as a herring yourself,” Muriel retorted, with a most unwonted flash of spirit.

He lifted his grinning face to her as she settled herself in the saddle, and then uncovering swiftly he bent and kissed the black cloth of her habit, humbly, reverently, as became a slave.

It sent a queer thrill through her, that kiss of his.  She felt that it was in some fashion a revelation; but she was still too blinded by groping in dark places to understand its message.  As they trotted side by side out of the compound, she knew her face was burning, and turned it aside that he might not see.

It was a wonderful morning.  There was intoxication in the scent of the pines.  The whole atmosphere seemed bewitched.  They gave their horses the rein and raced with the wind through an enchanted world.  It was the wildest, most alluring ride that she had ever known, and when Nick called a halt at last she protested with a flushed face and sparkling eyes.

Nevertheless, it was good to sit and watch the rapid transformation that the sun-god was weaving all about them.  She saw the spurs of Jakko fade from pink to purest amber, and then in the passage of a few seconds gleam silver in the flood of glory that topped the highest crests.  And her heart fluttered oddly at the sight, while again she thought of the eagle of her dream, cleaving the wide spaces, and bearing her also.

She glanced round for Nick, but he had wheeled his horse and was staring out towards the plains.  She wondered what was passing in his mind, for he sat like a statue, his face turned from her.  And suddenly the dread loneliness of the mountains gripped her as with a chilly hand.  It seemed as if they two were alone together in all the world.

She walked over to him.  “I’m cold, Nick,” she said, breaking in upon his silence almost apologetically.  “Shall we go?”

He stretched out a hand to her without turning his head, without speaking.  But she would not put her own within it, for she was afraid.

After a long pause he gave a sudden sharp sigh, and pulled his horse round.  “Eh?  Cold?  We’ll fly down to Annandale.  There’s plenty of time before us.  By the way, I want to introduce you to a friend of mine—­Daisy Musgrave.  Ever heard of her?  She and Blake Grange are first cousins.  You’ll like Daisy.  We are great chums, she and I.”