He asked himself again, as he had asked himself by now a thousand times, how he could have been such a fool as not to recognise her for what she was.
He came near to her slowly and, when he saw the little pulse beating in her neck, he knew that she was frightened.
After a moment she said in a breathless voice hardly above a whisper,
“You have – come for – Pegasus?”
“No,” he answered, “I have been searching for you.”
“It was wrong of me to take him – when you had paid for him,” she said. “He was your horse, but I could not leave him – behind.”
“It was not Pegasus that mattered!”
Lord Manville’s voice was deep and hoarse.
Then, forcing himself with an effort to speak more lightly, he said,
“Can you not realise what a catastrophic muddle you have left us in? Mrs. Hewson has never sto
