He called after her once or twice at the start, but she did not pause or reply; and he could not know what mood possessed her; or that once in flight, in the security the horse gave her, she was for the first time afraid of him.  He had declared his love for her, and had offered to break down the veil of mystery that made him a strange and perplexing figure.  His affairs, whatever their nature, were now at a crisis, he had said; quite possibly she should never see him again after this ride.  As she waited at the gate she had known a moment of contrition and doubt as to what she had done.  It was not fair to her brother thus to give away his secret to the enemy; but as the horse flew down the rough road her blood leaped with the sense of adventure, and her pulse sang with the joy of flight.  Her thoughts were free, wild things; and she exulted in the great starry vault and the cool heights over which she rode.  Who was John Armitage?  She did not know or care, now that she had performed for him her last service.  Quite likely he would fade away on the morrow like a mountain shadow before the sun; and the song in her heart to-night was not love or anything akin to it, but only the joy of living.

Where the road grew difficult as it dipped sharply down into the valley she suffered him perforce to ride beside her.

“You ride wonderfully,” he said.

“The horse is a joy.  He’s a Pendragon—­I know them in the dark.  He must have come from this valley somewhere.  We own some of his cousins, I’m sure.”

“You are quite right.  He’s a Virginia horse.  You are incomparable—­no other woman alive could have kept that pace.  It’s a brave woman who isn’t a slave to her hair-pins—­I don’t believe you spilled one.”

She drew rein at the cross-roads.

“We part here.  How shall I return Bucephalus?”

“Let me go to your own gate, please!”

“Not at all!” she said with decision.

“Then Oscar will pick him up.  If you don’t see him, turn the horse loose.  But my thanks—­for oh, so many things!” he pleaded.

“To-morrow—­or the day after—­or never!”

She laughed and put out her hand; and when he tried to detain her she spoke to the horse and flashed away toward home.  He listened, marking her flight until the shadows of the valley stole sound and sight from him; then he turned back into the hills.

Near her father’s estate Shirley came upon a man who saluted in the manner of a soldier.

It was Oscar, who had crossed the bridge and ridden down by the nearer road.

“It is my captain’s horse—­yes?” he said, as the slim, graceful animal whinnied and pawed the ground.  “I found a horse at the broken bridge and took it to your stable—­yes?”

A moment later Shirley walked rapidly through the garden to the veranda of her father’s house, where her brother Dick paced back and forth impatiently.

“Where have you been, Shirley?”