r so engaging! "_If one only loved where it was wise to
love, all the sorrows of the world would be ended,_" those words of
the pretty figureante haunted her, with all their meaning beating
through her brain. What a farce seemed the careless, empty chatter
beside her! It grew unbearable, to feel his careless glance sweep
across her face, to hear him laugh carelessly, to be conscious of the
fact that after all he was the stronger; he could face her easily,
graciously, and she did not dare even meet his eyes lest he should,
after all, see; the thought of her weakness frightened her; suppose he
should compel her to the truth. Suppose--

She felt half hysterical; the drive had never before been so long. She
feared she must scream--do something to break through this horrible
chain of circumstances, linking them for even so short a space within
touch of each other. And he was the man she had promised herself to
hate, to make suffer, to--

Some one did scream; but it was the Countess. Out of a side street
came a runaway team, a shouting man heralding their approach. At that
point street repairs had left only a narrow carriage-way, and a wall
of loose stone; there was no time to get out of the way; no room to
turn. There was a collision, a crash! The horses of the Countess
leaped aside, the right front wheel struck the heap of stone, flinging
the driver from his seat. He fell, and did not move again.

At that sight the Countess uttered a gasp and sank to the bottom of
the carriage. The Marquise stooped over her only for an instant, while
the carriage righted itself and all four wheels were on a level once
more; the horses alone had been struck, and were maddened with fear,
and in that madness lay their only danger now.

She lifted her head, and the man opposite, in her instant of
shrinking, had leaped over the back of the seat to secure the lines of
the now thoroughly wild animals.

One line was dragging between them on the ground. Someway he
maintained his footing on the carriage pole long enough to secure the
dragging line, and when he gained the driver's seat the Marquise was
beside him.

She knew what lay before them, and he did not--a dangerous curve, a
steep embankment--and they had passed the last street where they could
have turned into a less dangerous thoroughfare.

People ran out and threw up their hands and shouted. She heard him
fling an oath at them for adding fury to the maddened animals.

"It is no use