She began to feel driven, and her brows knit as she said: 

“I think you are very—­obstinate, Mr. Orme.”

“That describes me exactly,” he said, cheerfully.  “I’m a perfect mule when I like, and I’m liking it all I know at this moment.”

“It’s absurd—­it’s ridiculous, as I said,” she murmured, half angrily, half laughingly, “and I can’t think why you offered, why you want to—­to help me!”

“Never mind!” said Stafford, his heart beating with anticipatory triumph; for he knew that the woman who hesitates is gained.  “Perhaps I want to get some lessons in farming on the cheap, or—­”

—­“Perhaps you really want to help the poor girl who, though she is a lady, has to do the work of a farmer’s daughter,” she said, in a low voice.  “Oh, it is very kind of you, but—­”

“Then I’ll come over to-morrow an hour earlier than this, and you shall show me how to count the sheep, or whatever you do with them,” he put in, quickly.

“But I was going to refuse—­very gratefully, of course—­but to refuse!”

“You couldn’t; you couldn’t be so unkind!  I’ll ride a hunter I’ve got; he’s rather stiffer than Adonis, and better up to rough work.  I will come to the stream where we first met and wait for you—­shall I?”

He said all this as if the matter were settled; and with the sensation of being driven still more strongly upon her, she raised her eyes to his with a yielding expression in them, with that touch of imploration which lurks in a woman’s eyes and about the corners of her lips when for the first time she surrenders her will to a man.

“I do not know what to say.  It is absurd—­it is—­wrong.  I don’t understand why—.  Ah, well,” she sighed with an air of relief, “you will tire of it very quickly—­after a few hours—­”

“All right.  We’ll leave it at that,” he said, with an exasperating air of cheerful confidence.  “It is a bargain, Miss Heron.  Shall we shake hands on it?”

He held out his hand with the smile which few men, and still fewer women, could resist; and she tried to smile in response; but as his strong hand closed over her small one, a faint look of doubt, almost of trouble, was palpable in her violet eyes and on her lips.  She drew her hand away—­and it had to be drawn, for he released it only slowly and reluctantly—­and without a word she left the shed.

Stafford watched her as she went lightly and quickly up the road towards the Hall, Bess and Donald leaping round her; then, with a sharp feeling of elation, a feeling that was as novel as it was confusing, he sprang on his horse, and putting him to a gallop, rode for home, with one thought standing clearly out:  that before many hours—­the next morning—­he should see her again.

Once he shifted his whip to his left hand, and stretching out his right hand, looked at it curiously:  it seemed to be still thrilling with the contact of her small, warm palm.