the brake, muttered apologetically: "A little out
o'hand!"

Suddenly with a headlong dive, the carriage swayed as if it would fly in
pieces, slithered along, and with a jerk steadied itself. Harz lifted
his voice in a shout of pure excitement. Mr. Treffry let out a short
shaky howl, and from behind there rose a wail. But the hill was over and
the startled horses were cantering with a free, smooth motion. Mr.
Treffry and Harz looked at each other.

XVII

Mr. Treffry said with a sort of laugh: "Near go, eh? You drive? No?
That's a pity! Broken most of my bones at the game--nothing like it!"
Each felt a kind of admiration for the other that he had not felt before.
Presently Mr. Treffry began: "Look here, Mr. Harz, my niece is a slip of
a thing, with all a young girl's notions! What have you got to give her,
eh? Yourself? That's surely not enough; mind this--six months after
marriage we all turn out much the same--a selfish lot! Not to mention
this anarchist affair!

"You're not of her blood, nor of her way of life, nor anything--it's
taking chances--and--" his hand came down on the young man's knee, "I'm
fond of her, you see."

"If you were in my place," said Harz, "would you give her up?"

Mr. Treffry groaned. "Lord knows!"

"Men have made themselves before now. For those who don't believe in
failure, there's no such thing. Suppose she does suffer a little? Will
it do her any harm? Fair weather love is no good."

Mr. Treffry sighed.

"Brave words, sir! You'll pardon me if I'm too old to understand 'em
when they're used about my niece."

He pulled the horses up, and peered into the darkness. "We're going
through this bit quietly; if they lose track of us here so much the
better. Dominique! put out the lamps. Soho, my beauties!" The horses
paced forward at a walk the muffled beat of their hoofs in the dust
hardly broke the hush. Mr. Treffry pointed to the left: "It'll be
another thirty-five miles to the frontier."

They passed the whitewashed houses, and village church with its sentinel
cypress-trees. A frog was croaking in a runlet; there was a faint spicy
scent of lemons. But nothing stirred.

It was wood now on either side, the high pines, breathing their fragrance
out into the darkness, and, like ghosts amongst them, the silver stems of
birch-trees.

Mr. Treffry said gruffly: "You won't give her up? Her happiness means a
lot to me."

"To you!" said Harz: "to him! And I