once she was on the point of making the effort, only an overwhelming consciousness of the greatness of the issue which was at stake restrained her. At last, after what seemed very much more than an hour's drive, he brought the vehicle to a sudden stop. "You'll get out here," he intimated to them curtly. "Get out?" The lady peered about her through the mist and darkness. "This is not the house." "Yon's Pitmuir." "Pitmuir? But I paid you to drive us to the house; I can see no signs of it." "You did not. I'd not drive you to the house for a pocketful of money." "What fresh trick are you going to try on now? And what tomfoolery are you talking?" "It's tomfoolery maybe, and maybe it isn't. You said, carry you to Pitmuir, and I've carried you. Do you know they say that Cuthbert Grahame's walking about among the trees, waiting in the avenue, looking for the woman who called herself his wife. Do you think I'll take you to meet him? Not while I've my senses. If you are set on meeting him, you'll not meet him in my company--that's my last word. Yon's Pitmuir. That's the gate in front, not a dozen yards from where we are--that's nearer than I care for. You'll just both of you get out." CHAPTER XXXII AT THE GATE Verbal discussion was plainly useless; it was soon made sufficiently clear that nothing short of physical force would persuade that driver. Situated as they were it was not easy to see how they could resort to that method of convincing him of the error of his ways. Mrs. Lamb told him, with the lucidity of which under such circumstances she was past mistress, what she thought of him, and what treatment she would have accorded him if the conditions had only been a little different. In a tongue fight the man proved to be her match; he could pack at least as many disagreeable allusions into a sentence as she could. For ten minutes or a quarter of an hour they wrangled, then the driver delivered himself of an ultimatum. "I'm not going to stay here all night listening to you. If you won't get down I'll drive you back. Now which is it to be? I'm off!" "Off! Yes, you are off, as I'll soon show you." She showed him there and then. Whirling round on her seat, she gave the driver a sudden push; over he went on to the road. Snatching the reins in one hand, the whip in the other, before he quite knew what had happened, she was urging the horse to pursue its onward career. "Stop! stop!" he yelled. "I'm under the wheel! You're driving over me!" "Then if you don't want me to drive over you, you'll get from under the wheel; I'm going on." "Are you? I'll teach you, you----!" The fellow's language was full-blooded. Scrambling up as best he could, he made a vigorous attempt to board the vehicle and expel her from the seat she had usurped. She was not disposed to yield. Down came the whip upon his head and shoulders. There ensued a lively few moments.