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“She still loves you,” Grisell said. “Better than she does me!”

“She’s your horse,” Susan answered. “I’ve got to forget about her.”

They stood about, idly waiting for instructions because Susan had been persuaded to take part in the procession.

“It’s terribly irksome,” Grisell declared, looking about for someone. “All this waiting. Have you seen Fergus?”

“Not yet, but he’ll be here.”

“To see you?”

“No, he’s changed his mind about me.”

Grisell glanced at her suspiciously.

“I wish I could believe that,” she said as Steenie came up.

“Now, girls, you know what I want you to do,” he said. “After the scene with the hawks, you’ll ride down from the tower. Keep in a straight line. You’ll see the cameras, and I want you, Grisell, to ride close up and then go between them at a fair gallop. You get me?” he added doubtfully.

“Yes, I understand,” Grisell told him. “Do you want us to ride together?”

“Yes, but Susan will fade out about half-way down. You’ll come to the close-up alone.”

Susan recognised Richard in the small knot of spectators as they rode up to the tower.

“Your father’s over there, Grisell,” she said.

“I wish he wouldn’t come to look on,” Grisell grumbled. “He makes me nervous. The truth is, he thinks Hope’s Star is too much for me.” Her chin tilted. “I’ll prove him wrong this time!”

“Don’t do anything rash,” Susan warned, “though Hope’s docile enough in the ordinary way. Keep her on a tight rein, all the same, when you come up to the cameras.”

“I suppose we’ll have to go over this about a dozen times to get it right,” Grisell mused. “It gets boring after a while.”

“Yet you still want to do it?”

“Oh, it’s fun, in a way!” Grisell urged Hope’s Star to a gallop up the easy incline to the tower. “Imagine how far people rode in those days,” she added, looking towards the distant contours of the fells. “Miles and miles and miles! Mary, Queen of Scots, used to hunt down here with the Earl of Bothwell before she married him. I wonder what he was really like. Fergus says he was a ruffian, for all his grand tides, but Nellie thinks he must have been a 'braw young man’ to attract the Queen. I’ve been to Hermitage,” she added, “but it’s all so different now.”

“You need imagination,” Susan pointed out, “to see it as it used to be, but I think you’ve got plenty of that.”

“Sure!” Grisell smiled. “I can imagine myself in all sorts of roles!”

They waited for their cue, galloping down towards the cameras when Steenie gave them the signal, and Susan rode off at a tangent when she reached the clump of rocks which the assistant director had pointed out as a convenient place for her exit.

“Not too bad,” said Steenie when they reached him. “Now, up you go again and we’ll try once more.” He glanced down towards the road as a car drew up. “The stars are with us! I don’t want to keep them waiting any longer than I can help.”

There was a great deal of confusion on the road, cars reversing and turning in confined spaces, and someone high on the hill beside the ruined peel tower set a hawk free from its confining jesses. It zoomed down in a long curve, hovering for a moment almost directly above them, and then it plummeted to the earth to seize its prey. Hope’s Star reared up on her hind legs as it passed her, neighing wildly, and Grisell, taken completely by surprise, was just that fraction of a second too slow in her effort to control her. She bolted, her hoofs cutting a swathe through the heather as she ran, her frenzied pace increasing as soon as she reached the open moor.

Susan saw Grisell slip sideways in the saddle and heard a swift gasp from the crowd as everybody turned to look. She was first to act. Urging her own horse to a gallop, she set off towards a group of pines at the foot of the steep incline where she felt sure she could intercept Hope’s Star’s precipitous flight. At first the frightened mare had galloped uphill, but soon she would turn and come down and Susan had to be there first. If Grisell’s foot had slipped from the stirrup at the moment of takeoff her life would be in danger. It was as simple as that.

The two horses were almost level when they reached the pines, but suddenly Hope’s Star veered away. Susan wheeled her own mount round to follow, calling softly to the other horse.

“All right, Hope! Nothing’s going to harm you.”

She saw Grisell’s face for a moment, strained and white but somehow determined, as she tugged at the rein, and then the mare seemed to swing violently towards her, crushing her into the wooden fence which encircled the plantation.

The trees appeared to turn upside down, she felt a searing pain in her side, and the sun danced crazily before her eyes. Then, suddenly, it seemed to go out. It was very dark.

Minutes—or hours—passed before she felt herself being lifted and carried downhill. Voices sounded above and around her, but she didn’t recognise any of them. Someone mentioned Grisell’s name.

“Will she die?” she heard herself asking in a weak voice.

Whatever the answer was, it was lost in a great sea of pain as she tried to move. It blurred her senses, leaving her limp, but she could still recognise the steady descent of tramping feet and knew that she was being carried on some kind of improvised stretcher. Before she had reached the roadway, she was unconscious.

THE sun seemed to be full on her face when she tried to open her eyes.

“Turn that light away,” somebody said, and she thought that it was Evelyn.

Evelyn in a strange house. Because, even before she opened her eyes fully, she knew that this wasn’t her own bed. She was lying in a room she had never seen before, with long windows from floor to ceiling curtained in rose-coloured velvet. The light, which she had taken for the sun, came from a tall lamp set on a table near the bed, and Evelyn and someone else was bending over her.

“She’s coming round,” Grisell whispered. “Oh, Evelyn, do you think—?”

“Sh-sh!” Evelyn interrupted. “Go and get some tea.”

They were left alone, Evelyn and she, in that strange, warm house.

“Where am I ?” she heard herself ask.

Evelyn’s face came between her and the light.

“At the Carse. It was the nearest place to bring you,” she explained.

“Is Grisell all right?”

"Yes.” Her stepmother’s voice was very low. “People like Grisell always land on their feet.”

“And—the horses?”

"You’re not to worry about them,” Evelyn said.

Susan tried to sit up.

“But Hope’s Star—”

Evelyn pressed her firmly back against the pillows.

“She’s lame, that’s all. She’ll mend,” she promised.

Susan closed her eyes, conscious of an overwhelming relief. It seemed a long time before Grisell returned with the tea, but when she did Evelyn rose to go.

“Susan,” Grisell said, “I’m sorry! I caused all this, and so much more. You must hate me.”

“I don’t want to hate you,” Susan told her vaguely, “and I’ve no right to be here, cluttering up Max’s home.”

“You’re a funny girl,” Grisell said. “I’ll never forgive myself for being so careless.”

“Evelyn says the horses are all right.”

“It’s not just the horses.” Grisell stood looking down at her with a rueful air. “It’s about Lilias, too. I was an idiot, and I could have wrecked everything for you and Max.”

Max! This was his home, Susan thought, but where was he?

“I must get back to Denham,” she said urgently.

“Not yet,” Grisell told her. “You have to stay here for the present, on doctor’s orders!”

“How can I when Max comes?”

“You’ll see,” Grisell said.

Painfully Susan sipped the warm tea. Her throat ached and her head felt as if it had been pounded by a sledgehammer. Her whole body seemed to be bruised.

“You must be black and blue all over,” Grisell remarked helpfully, “but thank heavens, there’s no bones broken! I guess you saved my life,” she added with a suspicion of tears in her eyes. “Thank you, anyway, Sue!”

When Susan had finished the tea she took the tray and went out, closing the door behind her. Some time later it opened again and Max came in. He seemed to fill up all the room, as he had appeared to fill the whole horizon that first day of their meeting, high up on the moor road under the Hunter’s Crag. He came straight towards the bed and stood looking down at her.

“You must hate this,” she said in a hollow voice. “Having me here, at the Carse.”

Struggling into a sitting position, she drew the bedclothes tightly under her chin as he bent over her.

“Lie still and don’t be a little fool,” he said, pressing her back against the pillows, as Evelyn had done. “The Carse isn’t going to fall down about my ears because you’re here when I least expected you.”

She gazed at him, wide-eyed, a strange little figure in her borrowed, frilly nightdress which was so unlike the practical person she believed herself to be. In the big, canopied bed she appeared swamped and somehow forlorn, and suddenly Max bent forward and took her in his arms.

“Sue, when will we ever learn?” he said, his lips close against her hair. “We ought to have known from the beginning that we were made for each other, but instead of that we squabbled and rowed like our lusty ancestors of so long ago!”

“I was to blame,” Susan whispered, hardly able to believe that she was here, in his arms, at last. “I couldn’t see beyond my little world of Denham’s and the fact that there wasn’t another Adam to carry on the name.”

“But now there is.” His arms tightened about her. “Evelyn will bring him up at Denham House, with Richard to help her for a little while.”

“It’s never been for long,” Susan sighed. “Poor Evelyn! She’s always been cheated of lasting happiness.”

“She doesn’t look at it in that way,” Max said crisply, his eyes full of admiration for her stepmother. “I’ve always admired Evelyn for the way she meets life with a smile. She’s the most resourceful person I know and I’m more than thankful that she’s willing to take Grisell in hand.”

She stirred in his arms.

“You know about Grisell—about the designs?"

“Evelyn told me part of the story and Grisell came to me with the rest of it. I expect Evelyn had a talk with her,” he smiled. “They get on together, you know, in spite of everything.”

When he had kissed her again, deeply and passionately, she sighed.

“Max,” she said, “I can’t believe all this is really happening—that I’m here, at the Carse, with you !”

“For good,” he added, bending to kiss her once more. “For as long as we live, Susan!”