She leaped over road and roadside bank, and into a heavy gorse–bush, and stood there quivering from muzzle to tail in the intensity of terror. If Rufus had not just foreseen her alarm, and gripped her with all his power, he must have lain senseless upon the road, spite of all his rough–riding in India. “Who–hoa, who–hoa, then, Polly, you little fool, you are killing me! Canʼt you see itʼs only a lady”? Polly still backed into the bush, and her unlucky rider, with every prickle running into him, could see the whites of her eyes in the moonshine, as the great orbs stood out with horror. Opposite to them, and leaning against a stile which led to a footpath, there stood a maiden dressed in black, with the moonlight sheer upon her face. She took no notice of anything; she had heard no sort of footfall; she did not know of Pollyʼs capers, or the danger she was causing. Her face, with the hunterʼs moon upon it, would have been glorious beauty, but for the broad rims under the eyes, and the spectral paleness. One moment longer she stared at the moon, as if questing for some one gone thither, then turned away with a heavy sigh, and went towards the Coffin Wood. All this time Rufus Hutton was utterly blind to romance, being scarified in the calf and thighs beyond any human endurance. Polly backed further and further away from the awful vision before her—the wife of the horse–fiend at least—and every fresh swerve sent a new lot of furze–pricks into the peppery legs of Rufus. “Hang it”! he cried, “here goes; no man with a haʼporth of flesh in him could stand it any longer. Thorn for thorn, Miss Polly”. He dashed his spurs deep into her flanks, the spurs he had only worn for show, and never dared to touch her with. For a moment she trembled, and reared upright in wrath worse than any horror; then away she went like a storm of wind, headlong through trees and bushes. It was all pure luck or Providence that Rufus was not killed. He grasped her neck, and lay flat upon it; he clung with his supple legs around her; he called her his Polly, his darling Polly, and begged her to consider herself. She considered neither herself nor him, but dashed through the wild wood, wilder herself, not knowing light from darkness. Any low beech branch, any scrag holly, even a trail of loose ivy, and man and horse were done for. The lights of more than a million stars flashed before Rufus Hutton, and he made up his mind to die, and wondered how Rosa would take it. Perhaps she would marry again, and rear up another family who knew not the name of Hutton; perhaps she would cry her eyes out. Smack, a young branch took him in the face, though he had one hand before it. “Go it again”! he cried, with the pluck of a man despairing, and then he rolled over and over, and dug for himself a rabbit–hole of sand, and dead leaves, and moss. There he lay on his back, and prayed, and luckily let go the bridle.