Love stories; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Scotland -- Fiction
Presently she felt that the car was going up a steep incline. When it
had been running swiftly she had not felt such, but now it was
apparent. It was not a big hill, however, and the run down the other
side was exhilarating, though the fear of some obstacle in front
damped such pleasure as there was. Even then the pace was not fast;
ordinarily it would have been considered as little better than a rapid
crawl. For a while, not long but seeming more than long, the road was
up-and-down till she saw in the dimness of the mist glimpses of
houses, then a few gleams of light from the chinks of shut windows.
Here she went very slowly and tooted often. She feared she might do
some harm; and the slightest harm now might mean delay. She breathed
more freely when she was out in the open again. That episode of the
arrest and the prolonged agitation which followed it had unnerved her
more than she had thought; and now the mist and the darkness and the
uncertainty were playing havoc with her. It was only when she was long
past the little place that she regretted she had not stopped to ask if
she was on the right road. There was nothing for it, however, but to
go on. The road was all up and down, up and down; but the surface was
fairly good, and as the powerful lamps showed her sufficient space
ahead to steer she moved along, though it had to be with an agonising
slowness. How different it all was, she thought, from that
fairy-chariot driving with Him in the morning. The road then seemed
straight and level, and movement was an undiluted pleasure! For an
instant she closed her wearied eyes as she sighed at the change--and
ran off the road-bed.
Happily she was going slowly and recovered herself before more than
the front wheels were on the rough mass of old road-scrapings. In a
couple of seconds she had backed off and was under way again. She was
preternaturally keen now in her outlook. She felt the strain acutely;
for the road seemed to be always curving away from her. Moreover there
was another cause of concern. Night was coming on. Even in the densest
mist or the blackest fog the light or darkness of the sky is to some
degree apparent. Now the sense came on her that over the thick mist
was darkness. She stopped a moment and getting out looked at her watch
in the light of the lamps.
Her heart fell away, away. It was now close to _eight_ o’clock. There
was no use worrying she felt; nothing to be done but to go on,
carefully for the present. When she made up her mind to the worst, her
courage began to come back and she could think. She felt that as the
wind was now strongly in her face she must be nearing the Firth, and
that in time she would pass the Border and be heading for home and
father. She jumped into her seat and was off again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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