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lifted her fine head and watched him curiously, but without fear. He wanted to see her in action, and to study the flowing lines of her gallop, so he waved his hands, but Excuse Me stood fast and merely backed into a corner.
    When he went up to her, that tigerish beauty did not so much as flatten her ears, but she cringed a bit when he extended his hand, and the very heart of Carrick Dunmore winced within him. He could see on her velvet skin the marks of his quirt and the long lines of the scratching spurs that had raked her fore and aft. He knew that she had been injured in more than flesh. He gentled her with his hand and spoke softly, and Excuse Me turned dreamy and wondering eyes upon him. So swiftly had she been tamed—if only her spirit were not utterly broken. He thought of various mysteries as he stood beside her, stroking her, and of how women and men, also, may be made or broken by the right or the wrong touch.
    Carrick Dunmore, for instance—suppose the earl had not blundered upon him as he juggled in the street of the village and made a rudely overbearing demand—why, then, in that case the boy would have remained a clod, a cowherd, or some such thing, to the end of his days. From the depths of his heart, Carrick Dunmore the First must have thanked his lordship in after days for the whip stroke of discourtesy that had roused his heart.Such a stroke, mused the new Carrick Dunmore, might fall upon him, also, one of these days.
    He looked back to the big, looming shoulders of the house above the trees, and then scowled as he thought of his cousin washing dishes inside. His impulse was to go and help her; his second thought was that it was no use to make one pleasant gesture.
    He spent two hours with the mare. From the grain bin, he fed her crushed barley out of the palm of his hand. With shining eyes she would nibble at it, and then toss her head wildly, and back away, but she would come again, until at last she seemed to lose her fear that the flattened hand might be a steel trap about to spring shut on her tender muzzle.
    The moment she began to trust Dunmore, his heart suddenly enlarged and embraced her with love. He wondered how it could be that in one day she had been subdued, in one day she had learned to forget her tigerish manners, but then it occurred to him that she never had failed of her own way since the day she was foaled. That made the great difference.
    He strolled back to the house to see his cousin for the last time and to thank her for what she had done for him. He found her already through the dishes and hanging out a few scraps of laundry on the wire line that ran from the edge of the creamery to the corner post of the rear porch.
    â€œI suppose I’ll have to start on,” he said.
    â€œBefore the doctor gives you marching orders?”
    â€œYes. I’d better drift.”
    â€œWell, wait a moment, then.”
    Somehow he had thought that she would make it difficult for him to leave. It rather surprised him and hurt him that she let him go so readily. But now she came out again with a thick envelope.
    â€œThat’s the prize for the riding contest,” she told him. “Colonel Clisson raised the prize to two hundred dollars. Wasn’t that fine of him?”
    He reached for the envelope, and then checked his hand. He looked at her face and colored a little. “Cousin Elizabeth,” he said at last, “I’ve been wondering how I could pay you back for the way you’ve taken me in. Now, look here. You keep that envelope, will you?”
    She lowered her hand. He saw that she was smiling gently at him, and his heart bounded.
    â€œWhy should I take your money, Carrick?” she asked. “Do you want to pay me because I’ve had the pleasure of taking care of the head of our house for a day or two?”
    Her smile persisted; she seemed waiting for him to argue. But Carrick felt oddly out of place and ill at ease. It was not the first time