blown off. If my companion
were any one else, I should grasp _him_.

We are only a mile and a half from our haven now; the turn I dread is
nearing.

"Are you frightened?" asks Musgrave, in a pause of the storm.

"_Horribly!_" I answer.

I have forgotten Brindley Wood--have forgotten all the mischief he has
done. I recollect only that he is human, and that we are sharing what
seems to me a great and common peril.

"Do not be frightened!" he says, in an eager whisper--"you need not. I
will take care of you!"

Even through all the preoccupation of my alarm something in his tone
jars upon and angers me.

"_You_ take care of me!" I cry, scornfully. "How could you? I wish you
would not talk nonsense."

We have reached the turn now! Shall we do it? One moment of breathless
anxiety. I set my teeth and breathe hard. No, we shall not! We turn too
sharp, and do not take a wide-enough sweep. The coach gives a horrible
lurch. One side of us is up on the hedge-bank!--we are going over! I
give a little agonized yell, and make a snatch at Frank, while my
fingers clutch his nearest hand with the tenacity of a devil-fish. If it
were his hair, or his nose, I should equally grasp it. Then, somehow--to
this moment I do not know how--we right ourselves. The grooms are down
like a shot, pulling at the horses' heads, and in a second or two--how
it is done I do not see, on account of the dark--but with many bumpings,
and shouts and callings, and dreadful jolts, we come straight again, and
I drop Frank's hand like a hot chestnut.

In ten minutes more we are briskly and safely trotting up to the
hall-door. Before we reach it, I see Roger standing under the lit
portico, with level hand shading his eyes, which are intently staring
out into the darkness.

"All right? nothing happened?" he asks, in a tone of the most poignant
anxiety, almost before we have pulled up.

"All right!" replies Barbara's voice, softly cheerful. "Are you looking
for Nancy? She is at the back with Frank."

Roger makes no comment, but this time he does not offer to lift me down.

"Well, here we are!" cries Mr. Parker, coming beaming into the hall,
with his mackintosh one great drip, laughing and rubbing his hands. "And
though I say it that should not, there are not many that could have
brought you home better than I have done to-night, and, I declare, in
spite of the rain, we have not had half a bad day, have we?"

But we are all strictly silent.

CH