wed confusedly, the coming storm held
promise of a pelting and obliterating rain. He pushed into a thick-set
wood, and began a desperate ride across country. It was necessary to
strike the main road below Red Fields.

Their way was now dangerous enough, but he and Selim made no stay for
that. They went at speed over stock and stone, between resinous pines,
through sumach and sassafras. Lightnings were beginning to play, and the
thunder to roll more loudly. The sunbeams were gone, the trees without
motion, the air hot and laden. Horse and man panted on. Rand's mind made
swift calculation. He had ordered Young Isham to walk the mare. For all
that time had seemed to stop, there at the stream behind him, the
minutes were no longer than other minutes, and there had passed of them
no great number. He had ridden from the ford to the stream at speed, and
now he was going as rapidly. He would presently reach the main road, and
Young Isham would not have passed.

It fell as he had foreseen. One last burst through brush and vine and
scrub and they reached the edge of the wood. Before them through the
trees he saw the main road. Rand checked the horse. "Stand a bit, Selim,
while I play the scout."

Dismounting, he moved with caution through a mass of dogwood and laurel
to the bank. At a distance beneath him lay the road, bare under the
storm clouds. Above and below where he stood it was visible for some
rods, and upon it appeared neither man nor beast. He went back to Selim,
mounted, and together they made shift to descend the red bank. As, with
a noise of breaking twigs and falling earth and stone, they reached the
road, a man, hitherto hidden by the giant bole of the oak beneath which
he had sat down to rest, rose and came round his tree to see what made
the commotion. Between the cause and the investigator was perhaps fifty
feet of road. Rand muttered an oath, then, with a characteristic cool
resolve, rode up to M. Achille Pincornet and wished him good-day.

"Good-day, Mr. Rand," echoed the dancing master, and stared at the bank.
"Parbleu, sir! Why did you come that way?"

"I left my servant a little way down the road and struck into the woods
after a doe I started. I'll gallop back and meet him now. Are you for
Charlottesville, Mr. Pincornet?"

"Not to-day, sir. I have a dancing class at Red Fields." Mr. Pincornet
still stared. "I would say, sir, that the chase had been long and hard."

Rand laughed. "Am I so torn and br