er
than submit to such humiliation, and, besides, she was anxious to gain
time till her servants could come up. But just as she was succeeding in
stopping the horses, the whip came whizzing down across their backs,
and again they plunged forward. No word or cry passed Theresa's lips,
but she drew at the reins so hard and persistently that the horses came
near to a halt, till the lash smote upon their flanks again. Twice was
the effort to stop repeated, and twice frustrated in the same rude
manner, till both the driver and the beaten ponies felt the futility of
the attempt. All through this the elder woman had clung screaming to
the girl, both arms thrown round her waist; now she sank forward, in a
kind of swoon of terror, and had to be forcibly restrained from falling
out of the carriage. A flood of anger and dismay swept over Theresa;
for a time the horses, the road, were blurred before her eyes, and at
last she could hardly tell whether she still held the reins or not. She
had, in fact, allowed them to drop upon her lap; she took them up
again, and with one arm thrown round the drooping figure of her
chaperon, and both her hands grasping at the reins, she made yet
another effort to regain command of the terrified ponies. But she soon
perceived that they were now beyond all control. It had grown quite
dark; high in the air, above the undergrowth of bushes, the tall
poplars by the roadside seemed to be moving swiftly onward, and keeping
pace, as it were, with the carriage. She no longer knew where she was.
The only object she could clearly distinguish, except the horses, was
the tall figure at their side--the spectral form that towered above the
little animals, and kept steadily abreast of them. Where were they
going? And like lightning the thought flashed upon her that they were
not making for the town, that this stranger was not an officer, but a
brigand, that she was being carried off to some distant hiding-place,
and that presently the rest of the band would be upon her. In the agony
of distress which this sudden apprehension raised, there broke from her
the cry, "Stop, for God's sake. What is it you are doing? Can you not
see----" She could say no more, for again she heard the lash whizzing
through the air, and the crack of its stroke upon the backs of the
horses, and felt herself whirled faster than ever along the road.

Swiftly as this wild flight itself, the thoughts chased one another
through her mind.

"What