Then amid a babel of exclamations and a chorus of blame and praise, the ladder was brought, and Vaughan made haste to descend. A waiter tripped out with the brown brandy and water on a tray; and the young lady, who had not spoken, but had remained, sitting white and still, where Vaughan had placed her, sipped it obediently. Unfortunately the landlady’s eyes were sharp; and as Vaughan passed her to go into the house—for the coach must be driven up the yard and turned before they could set off again—she let fall a cry. “Lord, sir!” she said, “your hand is torn dreadful! You’ve grazed every bit of skin off it!” He tried to silence her; and failing, hurried into the house. She fussed after him to attend to him; and Sammy, who was not a man of the most delicate perceptions, seized the opportunity to drive home his former lesson. “There, Miss,” he said solemnly, “I hope that’ll teach you to look out another time! But better his hand than your head. You’d ha’ been surely scalped!” The girl, a shade whiter than before, did not answer. And he thought her, for so pretty a wench, “a right unfeelin’ un!” Not so the Frenchman. “I count him a very locky man!” he said obscurely. “A very locky man.” “Well,” the coachman answered with a grunt, “if you call that lucky——” “_Vraiment! Vraiment!_ But I—alas!” the Frenchman answered with an eloquent gesture, “I have lost my all, and the good fortunes are no longer for me!” “Fortunes!” the coachman muttered, looking askance at him. “A fine fortune, to have your hand flayed! But where’s”—recollecting himself—“where’s that there fool that caused the trouble! D—n me, if he shall go any further on my coach. I’d like to double-thong him, and it’d serve him right!” So when the ex-M.P. presently appeared, Sammy let go his tongue to such purpose that the political gentleman; finding himself in a minority of one, retired into the house and, with many threats of what he would do when he saw the management, declined to go on. “And a good riddance of a d—d Tory!” the coachman muttered. “Think all the world’s made for them! Fifteen minutes he’s cost us already! Take your seats, gents, take your seats! I’m off!” Vaughan, with his hand hastily bandaged, was the last to come out. He climbed as quickly as he could to his place, and, without looking at his neighbour, he said some common-place word. She did not reply, and they swept under the arch. For a moment the sight of the thronged marketplace diverted him. Then he looked at her, and he saw that she was trembling.