Page:The little blue devil (IA littlebluedevil00mackiala).pdf/257
“Of course he will!” Uncle Markham was overjoyed. “Alick, the child wants you to take her a ride to-morrow. You can manage that all right, eh?”
“Yes, sir, of course, if she would like it.”
He looked at Pamela. She was grave, but said steadily, “Yes, please.”
“It is I who thank you,” he said very low; then he went away.
“He really is tactful,” Pamela thought, unaware of the triumph in his heart, the gleam in his dark eyes. They rode the next day, and the next, and the day after that. Power was careful, and Pamela decided that it was not fair to forgive a person and yet refuse to trust him again. She enjoyed her rides, and that moonlight night became a vague dream-memory—horrible but long past now. Fear slept, stirring seldom in its sleep, and Pamela smiled again.
One day Power asked her as they rode home, looking straight ahead of him and obviously nervous:
“Will you come for a drive with me to-morrow? I have to go to Linton for a meeting, and I thought you might like it, perhaps.”
She hesitated. Forty miles, there and back—and a drive was very different from a ride. She certainly did not want to go, but it was hard to refuse since they had buried the hatchet. He waited patiently for her answer, but she would not commit herself then. Uncle Markham decided the matter.
“A very good idea. You’ve practically not seen the town at all. You may as well know what we can do in the way of a township, and you’ve had no driving at all since you came. While the boy’s at his meeting you can go and see Mrs. Fraser—you remember, they were out here a couple of weeks ago. That’ll be something new for you to do. You’d like it, Pamela?”
He was so anxious for her to be pleased that she over-