He uttered a shaken laugh. “You think of everything, ma’am!”

“I may think of everything,” said Miss Morville, “but I am not always able to accomplish all I should wish to! My chief desire has been to procure water with which to revive you, but, in the circumstances, I scarcely dared to leave your side. I do not think,from what I can observe, that you have broken your collar-bone.”

“I am very sure I have not, ma’am. I have merely broken my head!”

“Does it pain you very much?” she asked solicitiously.

“Why, yes! It aches like the very deuce, but not, I assure you, as much as does my self-esteem! How came I to fall, like the rawest of greenhorns?” He received no answer to this, and added, with an effort towards playfulness: “But I forget my manners! I must thank you for preserving my life, Miss Morville — even though it may have been at the cost of my cravat!”

“I am not, in general,” said Miss Morville carefully, “an advocate for the employment of hyperbole in describing trifling services, but I believe, my lord, that in this instance I may be justly said to have done so.”

He was engaged, with only slightly unsteady fingers, in loosely knotting the ruined cravat about his throat, but at these words he paused in his task to frown at her in some bewilderment. “I collect that in this uncertain light I must have been so careless as to let Cloud set his foot in a rabbit-burrow. I own, I have no very clear remembrance of what occurred, but — ”

“No,” said Miss Morville.

He looked intently at her. “No?”

“You have been unconscious for several minutes, sir,” said Miss Morville. “When once I had ascertained that your heart still beat strongly, I had leisure to look about me, to discover, if I might, what had been the cause of the accident. I am excessively reluctant to add to your present discomforts, but I must request you, in your own interests, to look at what met my eyes a minute or two ago.”

The Earl’s surprised gaze obediently followed the direction of her pointing finger, and alighted upon a length of thin, yet stout, cord, which lay on the ground across the avenue, to disappear into the thicket beyond.

“You will observe,” said Miss Morville dispassionately, “that the cord is attached to one of the lower branches of that tree upon your left hand. I have been trying to puzzle it out in my mind, and I am strongly of the opinion, my lord, that if the other end of the cord were to be held by some person standing concealed in the thicket to your right, it would be a simple matter for such a person suddenly to pull it taut across the path at the very moment when your horse was abreast of it.”

There was a moment’s silence; then the Earl said: “Your power of observation is acute, ma’am. But what a happiness to be assured that I fell from no negligence of my own!”

She seemed to approve of this light-hearted response, for she smiled, and said: “I am sure you must be much relieved, my lord.” She was then silent for a short space, adding presently: “To be attaching exaggerated importance to trifling circumstances is what I have no patience with, but I cannot conceal from you, my lord, that I do not at all like what has occurred!”

“You express yourself with praiseworthy moderation, Miss Morville,” Gervase returned, rising to his feet, and brushing the dirt from his coat. “I will own that for my part I dislike it excessively!”

“If,” she said, holding her hands rather tightly clasped in her lap, “I could rid my mind of the horrid suspicion that only my unlooked-for presence, here is the cause of your being alive at this moment, I should feel very much more comfortable.”

He held down his hand to her. “Come, get up, ma’am! You will take cold if you continue to sit on the damp ground. My case was not likely to be desperate, you know. I might, of course, have broken my neck, but the greater probability was that I should come off with a few bruises, as indeed I have, or with a broken limb at the worst.”

She accepted his assistance in rising to her feet, but said with a little asperity: “To be sure, there is not the least reason why you should credit me with common-sense, for I daresay I may never have warned you that although I am not bookish I have a tolerably good understanding! My fault is a lack of imagination which makes it impossible for me to believe that a cord was stretched across your path by some mischance — or even,” she added tartly, “by supernatural agency, so pray do not try to entertain me with any of your nonsensical ghost-stories, sir, for I am not in the mood for them!”

He laughed. “No, no, I know your mind to be hardened against them, ma’am! Let us admit at once that a cord was tied to that tree, and allowed to lie unnoticed across the avenue until my horse was abreast of it. There can be little doubt that it was then jerked tight, an action which, I judge, must have brought it to the level of Cloud’s knees. That he came down very suddenly I recall, and also that I was flung over his head.”

“Who did it?” she said abruptly.

“I don’t know, Miss Morville. Do you?”

She shook her head. “There was no one in sight when I ran out into the avenue. I looked for no one, for I had then no suspicion that the accident had been contrived, but I think I must have noticed anyone moving by the thicket.”

“You could not have done so had he stood behind the thicket. Was it long after I fell that you came up with me? By the by, where were you, ma’am? I did not see you!”

“No, for I was walking along that ride, coming from the village, you know,” she replied, nodding towards the path. “You would only have perceived me had you chanced to turn your head, and from the thicket I must have been wholly obscured. I heard the fall, and you may readily suppose that I wasted no time in running to the spot — it cannot have been more than a matter of seconds before I had reached the end of the ride. It must have been impossible for anyone to have had sufficient time between your fall and my coming into view to have removed that cord, or — ”

She stopped. He prompted her gently: “Or, Miss Morville?”

“Excuse me!” she begged. “I had nearly said what must have given you reason to suppose that I have a disordered intellect! I believe that the shock of seeing you stretched lifeless upon the ground has a little overset my nerves.”

“You mean, do you not, that the finishing blow might have been dealt me while I lay senseless, had you not been at hand to frighten away my assailant?”

“I did mean that,” she confessed. “The misadventure you escaped at the bridge the other day must have been in my mind, perhaps.”

So you knew about that!”

“Everyone knows of it. One of the servants heard your cousin rating Martin for — for his carelessness in forgetting to warn you. You must know how quickly gossip will spread in a large household! But if it was indeed Martin who brought your horse down, I am persuaded he did not mean to kill you!”

“Just a boyish prank, Miss Morville?” Gervase said.

“It was very bad, of course, for he could not know that the accident would not prove to be fatal. When his temper is roused, there is no saying what he will do. He seems not to care — But I own this goes beyond anything I should have thought it possible for him to do! There is no understanding it, for he is by no means a genius, so that we cannot excuse him on the score of eccentricity.”

His head was aching, but he was obliged to smile. “Is it your experience that geniuses are apt to perform such violent deeds, ma’am?”

“Well, they frequently behave very irrationally,” she replied. “History, I believe, affords us many examples of peculiar conduct on the part of those whose intellects are of an elevated order; and within my own knowledge there is the sad case of poor Miss Mary Lamb, who murdered her mama, in a fit of aberration. Then, too, Miss Wollstonecraft, who was once a friend of my mother’s, cast herself into the Thames, and she,you know, had a most superior intellect.”

“Cast herself into the Thames!” echoed the Earl.

“Yes, at Putney. She had meant to commit the dreadful deed at Battersea, but found the bridge there too crowded, and so was obliged to row herself to Putney. She was picked up by a passing boat, and afterwards married Mr. Godwin, which quite turned her thoughts from suicide. Not that I should have thought it a preferable fate,” said Miss Morville reflectively, “but, then, I am not at all partial to Mr. Godwin. In fact, though I never met him — nor, indeed, Miss Wollstonecraft, either — I have often thought I should have liked Mr. Imlay better than Mr. Godwin. He was an American, with whom Miss Wollstonecraft had an unhappy connection, and although a great many harsh things have been said about him, Mama has always maintained that most of the trouble arose from Miss Wollstonecraft’s determination to make him an elm-tree round which she might throw her tendrils. Very few gentlemen could, I believe, support for long so arduous a role.”

“I find myself, as always, in entire agreement with you, Miss Morville,” he said gravely. “But do you wish me to suppose that a deranged mind was responsible for my accident?”

“By no means. Martin has too little control over his passions, but he cannot be thought to be deranged. Indeed, I cannot account for your accident, except by a solution which I am persuaded is not the correct one.”

He smiled slightly. “I have a great dependence on your discretion, Miss Morville. We shall say, if you please, that I was so heedless as to let Cloud set his foot in a rabbit-hole. Meanwhile, I think it would be well if I gathered up this cord, and stowed it away in my pocket.”