Her brows came together, and she looked at him as if she were puzzled.

“I don’t know why it matters,” she said.

“Well, I can’t tell you,” he said, helplessly.  “I only know that I don’t want to part from you this morning, knowing that the next time we meet we should meet as strangers.  I wanted to come to the Hall, to enquire after Mr. Heron.”

Her face flushed.

“Do not,” she said in a low voice.

“I won’t, of course,” he responded, quickly.  “It would only make matters worse; your father would naturally dislike me, refuse to see me; but—­well, it’s very hard on me.”

She looked at him again, gravely, thoughtfully, as if she were still puzzled by his persistence.  Her eyes wandered to the dogs.  Bess was still standing up against him, and Donald had thrown himself down beside him, and was regarding Ida with an air that said, quite plainly, “This new friend of yours is all right.”

“You have made friends with the dogs,” she said, with a slight smile.

Stafford laughed.

“Oh, yes.  There must be some good in dumb animals, for most of ’em take to me at first sight.”

She laughed at this not very brilliant display of wit.  “I assure you they wouldn’t cut me next time we met.  You can’t be less charitable than the dogs, Miss Heron!”

She gave a slight shrug to her straight, square shoulders.  The gesture seemed charming to Stafford, in its girlish Frenchiness.

“Ah, well,” she said, with a pretty air of resignation, as if she were tired of arguing.

Stafford’s face lit up, and he laughed—­the laugh of the man who wins; but it died away rather suddenly, as she said gravely: 

“But I do not think we shall meet often.  I do not often go to the other side of the lake:  very seldom indeed; and you will not, you say, fish the Heron; so that—­Oh, there is the colt loose,” she broke off.  “How can it have got out?  I meant to ride it to-day, and Jason, thinking I had changed my mind, must have turned it out.”

The colt came waltzing joyously along the road, and catching sight of the chestnut, whinnied delightedly, and the chestnut responded with one short whinny of reproof.  Ida rode forward and headed the colt, and Stafford quietly slid along by the hedge and got behind it.

“Take care!” said Ida; “it is very strong.  What are you going to do?”

Stafford did not reply, but stole up to the truant step by step cautiously, and gradually approached near enough to lay his hand on its shoulder; from its shoulder he worked to its neck and wound his arms round it.

Ida laughed.

“Oh, you can’t hold it!” she said as the colt plunged.

But Stafford hung on tightly and yet, so to speak, gently, soothing the animal with the “horse language” with which every man who loves them is acquainted.

Ida sat for an instant, looking round with a puzzled frown; then she slipped down, took the bridle off the chestnut and slipped it on the colt, the chestnut, who evidently understood the business, standing stock still.