But at first they did not speak. A quick, startled look came into the face of the young woman. A deeper shade glowed upon the cheek of the cavalier, reddening under the skin--a flush which shamed him, but which he could not master. He only kept his eyes straight between his horse's ears as he rode--after he had raised his hat and bowed at the close of the episode.
"I am to thank Captain Lewis once more," began the young woman, in a voice vibrant and clear--the sweetest, kindest voice in the world. "It is good fortune that you rode abroad so early this morning. You always come at need!"
He turned upon her, mute for a time, yet looking full into her face. It was sadness, not boldness, not any gay challenge, that marked his own.
"Can you then call it good fortune?" His own voice was low, suppressed.
"Why not, then?"
"You did not need me. A moment, and you would have been in command again--there was no real need of me. Ah, you never need me!"
"Yet you come. You were here, had the need been worse. And, indeed, I was quite off my guard--I must have been thinking of something else."
"And I also."
"And there was the serpent."
"Madam, there was the serpent! And why not? Is this not Eden? I swear it is paradise enough for me. Tell me, why is it that in the glimpses the sages give us of paradise they no more than lift the curtain--and let it fall again?"
"Captain Meriwether Lewis is singularly gloomy this morning!"
"Not more than I have been always. How brief was my little hour! Yet for that time I knew paradise--as I do now. We should part here, madam, now, forever. Yon serpent spelled danger for both of us."
"For both of us?"
"No, forgive me! None the less, I could not help my thoughts--cannot help them now. I ride here every morning. I saw your horse's hoof-marks some two miles back. Do you suppose I did not know whose they were?"
"And you followed me? Ah!"
"I suppose I did, and yet I did not. If I did I knew I was riding to my fate."
She would have spoken--her lips half parted--but what she might have said none heard.
He went on: "I have ridden here since first I saw you turn this way one morning. I guessed this might be your haunt at dawn. I have ridden here often--and feared each time that I might meet you. Perhaps I came this morning in the same way, not knowing that you were near, but hoping that you might be. You see, madam, I speak the absolute truth with you."