Fear nerved her. She tugged at the bridle. Starlight gave no heed. She was close upon the guards. She felt a strong grasp, she was pulled from her seat; for one dizzy moment she knew nothing. When she was again conscious she looked up into an anxious face above her, and looked on. In fear, excitement, anxiety, all thought of environment had burned away. It was a second's space she looked, a breath's space, when the soul, oblivious of the body, sees and seizes the great things of life. The face bending over her was fair, frank, and young, strong and serious, the eyes blue.--Then she came back to the everyday knowledge that she was leaning on his shoulder, his arm holding her close against him, his face bent above her; that she was on his horse before him, that he must have snatched her from the saddle at the last moment. She struggled to sit upright.
"You are not hurt?" he questioned anxiously.
"I don't know." He smiled as he looked at her, a little flash of consciousness showing in his own face. They were riding up a narrow side street.
"You see I had to race after you and I couldn't pull up at once though I managed to turn off up here. Wait!"
In some fashion, awkward enough with her there on the horse before him, he dismounted and held up his hands to lift her down. Frances allowed herself to be taken down meekly. Her eyes were dim with tears of mortification. She stood on the sidewalk, which was black with cinders from the ever passing trains, and saw the curious faces at the doors and windows of the small, sooty houses, saw the crowd running up from the station, and hated the whole adventure to its smallest detail. But before the crowd ran a man with Starlight tugging at the bridle rein he held.
"Bring him here!" Frances begged the stranger.
The young man flung the rein of his own horse across a paling's point, knotted it hastily and ran forward.
"So! so!" he cried, smoothing Starlight down the face and talking to him softly as he brought him to his rider.
"Give me your hand!" she demanded quickly.
"Before they are all here! I'm not afraid! Don't you see?" Her hands were on the pommel; she was in mad haste to escape the crowd almost upon her.
The stranger knelt, held out his hand, tossed her in the saddle and she was off, Starlight trotting decently and quietly, the quivering of his flesh and an indignant snort alone betraying his rashness.