All there's in it is what I said--or rather what you took me up on so fast," ended Plank, abashed.
"About your being in love with Syl--" "Confound it!" roared Plank, crimson to his hair; and he set his heavy spurs to his mount and plunged forward in a storm of dust.

Mortimer followed, silent, profoundly immersed in his own thoughts and deductions; and as he pounded along, turning over in his mind all the varied information he had so unexpectedly obtained in these last few days, a dull excitement stirred him, and he urged his huge horse forward in a thrill of rising exhilaration such as seizes on men who hunt, no matter what they hunt--the savage, swimming sense of intoxication which marks the man who chases the quarry not for its own value, but because it is his nature to chase and ride down and enjoy spoils.
And all that afternoon, having taken to his room on pretence of neuralgia, he lay sprawled on his bed, thinking, thinking.

Not that he meant harm to anybody, he told himself very frequently.

He had, of course, information which certain degraded men might use in a contemptible way, but he, Mortimer, did not resemble such men in any particular.

All he desired was to do Plank a good turn.