He dreaded to think of the memories he must take with him;
still more he deprecated the thoughts he would leave behind him. His
plight made him so desperate that he suddenly left the orchard where he
was gathering apples, went to the house, put on his riding-suit, and in a
few moments was galloping furiously away on his black horse. With a
renewal of hope Webb watched his proceedings, and with many surmises,
Amy, from a distant hillside, saw him passing at a break-neck pace.
CHAPTER LIII
BURT'S RESOLVE
For the first two or three miles Burt rode as if he were trying to leave
care behind him, scarcely heeding what direction he took. When at last he
reined his reeking horse he found himself near the entrance of the lane
over which willows met in a Gothic arch. He yielded to the impulse to visit
the spot which had seen the beginning of so fateful an acquaintance, and
had not gone far when a turn in the road revealed a group whose presence
almost made his heart stand still for a moment. Miss Hargrove had stopped
her horse on the very spot where he had aided her in her awkward
predicament. Her back was toward him, and her great dog was at her side,
looking up into her face, as if in mute sympathy with his fair mistress.
Hope sprang up in Burt's heart. She could not be there with bowed head if
she despised him. Her presence seemed in harmony with that glance by
which, when weak and unnerved after escaping from deadly peril, she had
revealed possibly more than gratitude to the one who had rescued her.
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