e darkness.

He slept heavily that night, the dead sleep of a man who has hunted
all day and has drunk deep in the evening. In the morning he awoke
sick and sorry, a strange mood for Robert Molyneux; but from midnight
to dawn he had lain with the death-spancel about his knees. In the
blackness of his mind he had a great longing for the sweet woman, his
love for whom awakened all that was good in him. His horse had fallen
lame, but after breakfast he asked his host to order out a carriage
that he might go to her. Once with her he thought all would be well.
Yet as he stood on the doorstep he had a strange reluctance to go.

It was a drear, gray, miserable day, with sleet pattering against the
carriage windows. Robert Molyneux sat with his head bent almost to his
knees, and his hands clenched. What face was it rose against his mind,
continually blotting out the fair and sweet face of his love? It was
the dark, handsome face of the woman he had met on the stairs last
night. Some sudden passion for her rose as strong as hell-fire in his
breast. There were many long miles between him and Eva, and his desire
for the dark woman raged stronger and ever stronger in him. It was as
if ropes were around his heart dragging it backward. He fell on his
knees in the carriage, and sobbed. If he had known how to pray he
would have prayed, for he was torn in two between the desire of his
heart for the dark woman, and the longing of his soul for the fair
woman. Again and again he started up to call the coachman to turn
back; again and again he flung himself in the bottom of the carriage,
and hid his face and struggled with the curse that had come upon him.
And every mile brought him nearer to Eva and safety.

The coachman drove on in the teeth of the sleet and wondered what Sir
Robert would give him at the drive's end. A half-sovereign would not
be too much for so open-handed a gentleman, and one so near his
wedding; and the coachman, already feeling his hand close upon it,
turned a brave face to the sleet and tried not to think of the warm
fire in the harness-room from which they had called him to drive Sir
Robert.

Half the distance was gone when he heard a voice from the carriage
window calling him. He turned round. 'Back! Back!' said the voice.
'Drive like hell! I will give you a sovereign if you do it under an
hour.' The coachman was amazed, but a sovereign is better than a
half-sovereign. He turned his bewildered horses for home.