She raised her head to listen, thinking that her senses must be playing her a trick. No; it certainly was the sound of wheels, coming nearer and nearer. Some one was driving fast through the darkness, so fast that in what seemed to her to be less than a minute the driver was close upon her. Apparently nearly in front of her, although she could not see it, was a road along which the vehicle was approaching. It carried no lights; nothing broke the shadows; but, if her ears could be trusted, within a stone's-throw of where she was some wheeled conveyance was hurrying past. She stood upon her one sound foot and shouted:-- "Hallo!--hallo-o!--hallo-o-o!" again and again. Her first shouts went unheeded. Possessed by a wild fear that she might remain unnoticed, raising her voice to a desperate yell, she started to scream herself hoarse. This time her tones travelled. Suddenly the vehicle ceased to move. An answering shout came back to her:-- "Who's there? What's the matter with you?" The accent was broad Scotch. Had it been the purest Cockney it could not have seemed more welcome. She replied to the inquiry:-- "I've sprained my ankle so that I can hardly move". This time in the other voice there was an unmistakable suggestion of surprise. "Is it a woman?" "Yes." Her tone was fainter. "And what might you be doing here at this hour of the morning?" "I'm going to Carnoustie." "Carnoustie! You're going to Carnoustie!--along this road? You're joking! Can you get as far as this, so that I can have a look at you?" "I'll try." She did try. It was a distance of barely a hundred yards, but traversing it was a work of time. When the space was covered it was only by clutching at the wheel of the trap that she saved herself from subsiding in a heap upon the ground. In an instant the driver was off his seat, and with his arm about her. "Is it so bad as that?" "It is pretty bad," she stammered. "For the Lord's sake, don't faint! We've no time to waste upon such trifles." "I'm not going to faint." At any rate the tone was faint enough. Suddenly she seemed to pull herself together, as if stirred by a spirit of resentment. "I never have fainted in my life--I'm not going to begin to do it now." He laughed--that is, the little husky sound he made might have been intended for a laugh. "If you'll keep quite still I'll lift you up into the trap somehow, though, by the feel of you, you're as big as I am, and, maybe, heavier. The mare won't move. She's one of the few female things I ever met that wasn't troubled with the fidgets." As he put it, "somehow" he did get her up into the trap, then climbed on to the seat beside her. Presently they were bowling along together. For some seconds neither spoke. She was endeavouring to accustom herself to her new position. He, possibly--as his questions immediately showed--was wondering who it was that he had chanced upon. "You're English?" "I am." "Staying in these parts?" "I'm on a walking tour."