ulses sang together, "I love you! I love you!" in the
stuffy silence.

"Mosha Saint-Yvey!" spoke up a deliberate voice (Flora caught her hand
away), "as far as I can make head and tail of your business--supposing
it to have a modicum of head, which I doubt--it appears to me that I
have just done you a service; and that makes twice."

"A service, madam, I shall ever remember."

"I'll chance that, sir; if ye'll kindly not forget _yoursel'_."

In resumed silence we must have travelled a mile and a half, or two
miles, when Miss Gilchrist let down the sash with a clatter, and thrust
her head and mamelone cap forth into the night.

"Robie!"

Robie pulled up.

"The gentleman will alight."

It was only wisdom, for we were nearing Swanston. I rose. "Miss
Gilchrist, you are a good woman; and I think the cleverest I have met."

"Umph," replied she.

In the act of stepping forth I turned for a final handshake with Flora,
and my foot caught in something and dragged it out upon the road. I
stooped to pick it up, and heard the door bang by my ear.

"Madam--your shawl!"

But the coach lurched forward; the wheels splashed me; and I was left
standing alone on the inclement highway.

While yet I watched the little red eyes of the vehicle, and almost as
they vanished, I heard more rumbling of wheels, and descried two pairs
of yellow eyes upon the road, towards Edinburgh. There was just time
enough to plunge aside, to leap a fence into a rain-soaked pasture; and
there I crouched, the water squishing over my dancing-shoes, while with
a flare, a slant of rain, and a glimpse of flogging drivers, two hackney
carriages pelted by at a gallop.

CHAPTER XXXII

EVENTS OF FRIDAY MORNING: THE CUTTING OF THE GORDIAN KNOT

I pulled out my watch. A fickle ray--the merest filtration of
moonlight--glimmered on the dial. Fourteen minutes past one! "Past yin
o'clock, and a dark, haary moarnin'." I recalled the bull voice of the
watchman as he had called it on the night of our escape from the
Castle--its very tones: and this echo of memory seemed to strike and
reverberate the hour closing a long day of fate. Truly, since that night
the hands had run full circle, and were back at the old starting-point.
I had seen dawn, day: I had basked in the sunshine of men's respect; I
was back in Stygian night--back in the shadow of that infernal
Castle--still hunted by the law--with possibly a smaller chance than
ever of escape--the cockshy o