THE BRUSHWOOD BOY
"Awful brutes they were, too."
"I remember showing you the Thirty-Mile Ride the first time. You ride just as you used to—then. You are you!"
"That 's odd. I thought that of you this afternoon. Is n't it wonderful?"
"What does it all mean? Why should you and I of the millions of people in the world have this—this thing between us? What does it mean? I 'm frightened."
"This!" said Georgie. The horses quickened their pace. They thought they had heard an order. "Perhaps when we die we may find out more, but it means this now."
There was no answer. What could she say? As the world went, they had known each other rather less than eight and a half hours, but the matter was one that did not concern the world. There was a very long silence, while the breath in their nostrils drew cold and sharp as it might have been a fume of ether.
"That 's the second," Georgie whispered. "You remember, don't you?"
"It 's not!"—furiously. "It 's not!"
"On the downs the other night—months ago. You were just as you are now, and we went over the country for miles and miles."
"It was all empty, too. They had gone away. Nobody frightened us. I wonder why, Boy?"
"Oh, if you remember that, you must remember the rest. Confess!"
[428]
