Again that hasty, hurried step sounded, ringing out fiercely in the passage and along the quiet gravel walk. Once again the gate swung harshly and roughly on its frail hinges; then the sudden rush of a horse's quick hoofs rung out startlingly in the still, soft air, and in another moment died away in the far-off distance. "Where is your mistress? is she ready?" asked Vavasour of Amy's new maid, as ten minutes later he hastily entered the cottage. "My mistress is not ready, Sir," was the reply, with a pert toss of the head, while a peculiar expression played round the corners of her lips. "She is in the parlour, Sir. Mrs. Elrington thinks it's the heat of the day and the worry that has caused her to faint away." Yes; Amy lay on the sofa, quiet and motionless with scarcely any sign of life on her pale, sad face, while onward, onward, faster and faster still, rode Charles Linchmore. Would they ever meet again; and how? CHAPTER V. DEFEAT. "Art thou then desolate Of friends, of hopes forsaken? Come to me! I am thine own. Have trusted hearts proved false? * * * * * Why didst thou ever leave me? Know'st thou all I would have borne, and called it joy to bear, For thy sake? Know'st thou that thy voice hath power To shake me with a thrill of happiness By one kind tone?--to fill mine eyes with tears Of yearning love? And thou--Oh! thou didst throw That crushed affection back upon my heart. Yet come to me!" "'Tis he--what doth he here!" LARA. The great bell rang out at the lodge gate, and Charles Linchmore dashed up to the Hall almost as hastily as he had left it, and with scarce a word of greeting to the old butler, whom he passed on his way to the drawing-room, and never staying to change his dress, he strode on, all flushed and heated as he was, with his hurried journey and desperate thoughts, until he stood face to face with Mrs. Linchmore. "Why Charles!" exclaimed she, "what on earth has happened? What is the matter?" "Nothing," he replied. "Where's Frances?" "Nothing," she rejoined, indignantly, "to come into the room in such a plight as this! Look at the splashed state of your boots; and then your face. No one can look at that and not suspect something dreadful having happened. _I_ never saw anything so changed and altered as it is." "I dare say. I don't much care." "Are you mad? Where have you been?" "Nowhere. Where's Frances?" he asked again. "I do not know. But I advise you to make yourself a little more presentable before you seek her. These freaks--_mad_ freaks of riding half over the country, no one knows where, are not agreeable to those you come in contact with afterwards," and Mrs. Linchmore pushed her chair further away from him, and smoothed the rich folds of her dress, as though the act of doing that would soothe her ruffled temper.