de some peculiar
tint in the purple of the distant Apennines when suddenly the
carriage gave a lurch, and with a wild bound, the horses started off
at full speed down the road. Something had happened. Either the
harness had given way or the horses were frightened; at any rate,
they were running away at a fearful pace, and the driver, erect on
his seat, was striving with all his might to hold in the maddened
animals. His efforts were all to no purpose. On they went, like the
wind, and the carriage, tossed from side to side at their wild
springs seemed sometimes to leap into the air. The road before them
wound on down a spur of the mountains, with deep ravines on one
side--a place full of danger for such a race as this.

[Illustration: "He Laid Her Down Upon The Grass."]

It was a fearful moment. For a time Hilda said not a word; she sat
motionless, like one paralyzed by terror; and then, as the carriage
gave a wilder lurch than usual, she gave utterance to a loud cry of
fear, and flung her arms around Lord Chetwynde.

"Save me! oh, save me!" she exclaimed.

She clung to him desperately, as though in thus clinging to him she
had some assurance of safety. Lord Chetwynde sat erect, looking out
upon the road before him, down which they were dashing, and saying
not a word. Mechanically he put his arm around this panic-stricken
woman, who clung to him so tightly, as though by that silent gesture
he meant to show that he would protect her as far as possible. But in
so perilous a race all possibility of protection was out of the
question.

At last the horses, in their onward career, came to a curve in the
road, where, on one side, there was a hill, and on the other a
declivity. It was a sharp turn. Their impetus was too swift to be
readily stayed. Dashing onward, the carriage was whirled around after
them, and was thrown off the road down the declivity. For a few paces
the horses dragged it onward as it Iay on its side, and then the
weight of the carriage was too much for them. They stopped, then
staggered, then backed, and then, with a heavy-plunge, both carriage
and horses went down into the gully beneath.

It was not more than thirty feet of a descent, and the bottom was the
dry bed of a mountain torrent. The horses struggled and strove to
free themselves. The driver jumped off uninjured, and sprang at them
to stop them. This he succeeded in doing, at the cost of some severe
bruises.

Meanwhile the occupants of