'That should be enough.'
He glowered at me a moment, still ill content. Then, without a
word, be made me a gesture to go to her.
She had halted a score of paces away; wondering, doubtless, what
was on foot. I rode towards her. She wore her mask, so that I
missed the expression of her face as I approached; but the manner
in which she turned her horse's head uncompromisingly towards her
brother and looked past me was full of meaning. I felt the
ground suddenly cut from under me. I saluted her, trembling.
'Mademoiselle,' I said, 'will you grant me the privilege of your
company for a few minutes as we ride?'
'To what purpose?' she answered; surely, in the coldest voice in
which a woman ever spoke to a man.
'That I may explain to you a great many things you do not
understand,' I murmured.
'I prefer to be in the dark,' she replied. And her manner was
more cruel than her words.
'But, Mademoiselle,' I pleaded--I would not be discouraged--'you
told me one day, not so long ago, that you would never judge me
hastily again.'
'Facts judge you, not I,' she answered icily.
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