and
runs frantically after the mare, as though in foolish hope, that he may
yet overtake her and be of some service to his master. With a smothered
exclamation, Gower and Dicky Browne dash down the balcony steps to join
him in his vain pursuit.

Vain, indeed! At the lower end, by the long lawn, runs a river, small,
but swift, and turbulent, that flows for two miles through park, and
waving field, and glowing valley, to throw itself finally into the arms
of the thirsty ocean.

Towards this the horse is rushing madly. Once on its bank, who shall
tell what next may happen. There will be a mad bound--a crash--a cry,
perhaps, that will pierce through all other sounds--and then--and Sir
Christopher--.

As these thoughts force themselves upon the girls, they shudder, and
involuntarily move closer to each other. Dulce covers her face with her
hands, as though to shut out some dreadful sight, and a low dry sob
escapes her. Portia, deadly pale, but calm and wide-eyed, is clinging to
the balcony rails, and is gazing in speechless fear at the chestnut,
that every instant is bringing nearer to the fateful goal. Julia, from
time to time, emits short little shrieks of terror, she being the sort
of person who, in moments of peril, would be always safe to scream.

Onward flies the mare. Sir Christopher (as yet bolt upright in his seat,
and apparently, from the back view they can get of him, still so
possessed with rage as to be unconscious of fear) is trying hopelessly
to manage her.

Nearer and nearer to the brink of the stream they draw; now they are
within a few yards of it; soon help will be of little use, and the
panting groom and the two young men who are following him will only be
in time to witness more closely the disaster. All seems, indeed,
hopeless, when a man, springing from behind the thick laurel hedge that
grows on the right, rushes forward, and, seizing Bess by the head by
sheer force of mind and body, forces her upon her haunches.

"It is Fabian!" says Portia, in a voice sharp with fear.
"Dulce!--Dulce!" there is positive agony in her tone.

Dulce, letting her hands fall from her face, looks up. Julia forgets to
scream; all three watch with intensest anxiety the scene being enacted
below.

And now ensues a struggle between man and beast; a struggle sharp but
short. The beast, frightened, or, perhaps, with fury exhausted, it may
be, compelled against its will to acknowledge the superior power of mind
over ma