."

In his panic he twisted the wheel in the wrong direction, and the big
machine swerved obediently. The next moment Miss Greeby was knocked
down and writhed under the wheels. She uttered a tragic cry, but little
Silver cared for that. Rendered merciless with fear he sent the car
right over her body, and then drove desperately down the hill to gain
the hard road. Miss Greeby, with a broken back, lay on the ground and
saw as in a ghastly dream her machine flash roaring along the highway
driven by a man who could not manage it. Even in her pain a smile crept
over her pale face.

"He's done for, the little beast," she muttered, "he'll smash. Lambert!
Lambert!" The man whose name she breathed had arrived as she spoke; and
knelt breathlessly beside her to raise her head. "You--you--oh, poor
creature!" he gasped.

"I'm done for, Lambert," she panted in deadly pain, "back broken. I
sinned for you, but--but you can't hang me. Look--look after
Garvington--Cockleshell too--look--look--Augh!" and she moaned.

"Where are they?"

"In--in--the--cottage," murmured the woman, and fell back in a fainting
condition with a would-be sneering laugh.

Lambert started to his feet with an oath, and leaving the wretched woman
to the care of some gypsies, ran back to the glade. The cottage was a
mass of streaming, crackling flames, and there was no water to
extinguish these, as he realized with sudden fear. It was terrible to
think that the old woman and Garvington were burning in that furnace,
and desperately anxious to save at least one of the two, Lambert tried
to enter the door. But the heat of the fire drove him back, and the
flames seemed to roar at his discomfiture. He could do nothing but stand
helplessly and gaze upon what was plainly Garvington's funeral pyre.

By this time the villagers were making for the wood, and the whole place
rang with cries of excitement and dismay. The wintry scene was revealed
only too clearly by the ruddy glare and by the same sinister light.
Lambert suddenly beheld Chaldea at his elbow. Gripping his arm, she
spoke hoarsely, "The tiny rye is dead. He drove the engine over a bank
and it smashed him to a pulp."

"Oh! ah! And--and Miss Greeby?"

"She is dying."

Lambert clenched his hands and groaned, "Garvington and Mother
Cockleshell?"

"She is dead and he is dead by now," said Chaldea, looking with a
callous smile at the burning cottage, "both are dead--Lord Garvington."

"Lord Garvington?"