'Why, Jerry, how you frightened me!' Frank said, as he reined his horse
close up to her. 'Jump down and get up behind me. I will take you home.'
She obeyed, and with the agility of a little cat, got down from the
gate-post and on to the horse's back, putting both arms around Frank's
waist to keep herself steady, for the big horse took long steps, and she
felt a little afraid.
'Did you post the letter?' she asked again, as they left the gate behind
them and struck into the lane.
To lie now was easy enough, and Frank answered without hesitation:
'Of course. Did you think I would forget it?'
'No,' Jerry answered. 'I knew you would not. I only wanted to be sure,
because he trusted it to me, and not to have sent it would have been
mean, and a sneak, and a lie, and a steal. Don't you think so?'
She emphasized the 'steal,' and the 'lie,' and the 'sneak,' and the
'mean,' with a kick that made the horse jump a little and quicken his
steps.
'Yes,' Frank assented; it would be all she affirmed, and more too, and
the man who could do such a thing was wholly unworthy the respect of any
one, and ought to be punished to the full extent of the law.
'That's so,' Jerry said, with another emphatic kick and a slight
tightening of her arm around the conscience-stricken man, who wondered
if he should ever reach the cottage and be free from the clasp of those
arms, which seemed to him like bands of fire burning to his soul.
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