saw the hole,
it was more than probable that he would not be able to pull up in time.

Such moments as these form the criterion of true courage. There was
only one way in which Ida could save, or attempt to save, the
white-faced woman who was drawing towards her at breakneck speed. What
she would have to attempt to do would be to ride straight for the
oncoming horse, swerve almost as she reached it, and keep side by side
with it until she could succeed either in turning it away from that
horrible hole, or stop it by throwing it. She did not hesitate for a
moment.

It may be said in all truth that at that moment she forgot that the
woman whose life she was going to save was Maude Falconer; she did not
realise the fact--or, if she did, she was indifferent to it--that she
was risking her own life to save the woman who had robbed her of
Stafford. There was the life to be saved, and that was enough for Ida.
She slipped her foot almost out of the stirrup, felt Rupert's mouth
firmly but gently, leant forward and whispered a word to him, which it
is very likely he understood--perhaps he saw all the game even before
she did--and, with an encouraging touch of her hand, she let him go.

He sprang forward like an arrow from the bow. As they drew near the
flying horse, Ida shifted her whip to her left hand, so that her right
should be free, and, leaning as far in the saddle as she could with
safety, she made a snatch at Adonis's rein at the moment she came
alongside him. She would have caught the rein, she might have stopped
the horse or turned it aside--God alone knows!--but as her fingers
almost grasped it, Maude, steadied in her seat by the nearness of her
would-be rescuer, raised her whip and struck Ida across the bosom and
across the outstretched hand. The blow, in its finish, fell on Adonis's
reeking neck. With a snort he tore away from the other horse and swept
onwards, with Maude once again swaying in her saddle. Ida gazed at her
in speechless terror for an instant, then, as if she could look no
longer, she flung up her arm across her eyes.

A moment afterwards a cry, a shrill scream, that rang in her ears for
many a day afterwards, rose above the clatter of Adonis's hoofs, and
before the cry had died away horse and rider had fallen with awful
force into and across the hole. Then came a dead silence, broken only
by the sound of the horse's iron shoes as he kicked wildly and pawed in
a vain attempt to rise. Ida rode up,