'
'The feat is not original, Mrs Hopgood. I saw it done by a tough
little farmer last summer on a bull that was really mad. There was
no ditch for him though, poor fellow, and he had to jump a hedge.'
'You did not find it difficult,' said Madge, 'to settle your problem
when it came to you in the shape of a wild ox.'
'Because there was nothing to settle,' said Frank, laughing; 'there
was only one thing to be done.'
'So you believed, or rather, so you saw,' said Clara. 'I should have
seen half-a-dozen things at once--that is to say, nothing.'
'And I,' said Madge, 'should have settled it the wrong way: I am
sure I should, even if I had been a man. I should have bolted.'
Frank stayed to tea, and the evening was musical. He left about ten,
but just as the door had shut he remembered he had forgotten his
stick. He gave a gentle rap and Madge appeared. She gave him his
stick.
'Good-bye again. Thanks for my life.'
Frank cursed himself that he could not find the proper word. He knew
there was something which might be said and ought to be said, but he
could not say it. Madge held out her hand to him, he raised it to
his lips and kissed it, and then, astonished at his boldness, he
instantly retreated. He went to the 'Crown and Sceptre' and was soon
in bed, but not to sleep. Strange, that the moment we lie down in
the dark, images, which were half obscured, should become so
intensely luminous! Madge hovered before Frank with almost tangible
distinctness, and he felt his fingers moving in her heavy, voluptuous
tresses.
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