He did not see that; but one of the French girls, who had glanced up at her again, did see; and the girl looked quickly down at once as though fearing to betray it. But Ruth saw her thin hands clenching at her sides and crumpling the rags of her skirt; and from this Ruth was first aware that her own hands had clenched and through her pulled a new tension. “Go on,” von Forstner ordered his driver. The car sped along the turning road into woods; the road followed a stream which rushed down a tiny valley thirty or forty feet below. At times the turns gave glimpses far ahead and in one of these glimpses Ruth saw a large house which must be the _Landgut_--or the manor--of this German country-place. “See! We are almost home, _Liebchen_!” Von Forstner pointed it out to her when it was clearer and nearer at the next turn. He had his hand upon Ruth again; and the confident lust of his fingers set hot blood humming dizzily, madly in Ruth’s brain. The driver, as though responding to the impatience of his master, sent the car spinning in and out upon the turns of the road beside the brook. In two or three minutes more--not longer--the car would reach the house. Now the car was rushing out upon a reach of road abruptly above the stream and with a turn ahead sharper, perhaps, than most. In spite of the speed the driver easily could make the turn if unimpeded; but if interfered with at all.... The plan barely was in Ruth’s brain before she acted upon it. Accordingly, there was no chance for von Forstner to prevent it; nor for the driver to oppose her. She sprang from her seat, seized the driver’s right arm and shoulder, as he should have been turning the steering-wheel sharply; and, for the necessary fraction of a second, she kept the car straight ahead and off the road over the turn. When a motor car is going over, crouch down; do not try to leap out. So a racing driver, who had been driving military cars in France, had drilled into Ruth when he was advising her how to run the roads back of the battle lines. Thus as the car went over she sprang back and knelt on the floor between the seats. The driver fought for an instant, foolishly, to bring the car back onto the road; then he flung himself forward and down in front of his seat. Von Forstner, who had grabbed at Ruth too late, had been held standing up when the car turned over. He tried to get down. Ruth could feel him--she could not look up--as he tumbled half upon her, half beside her. She heard him scream--a frightful, hoarse man’s scream of mad rage as he saw he was caught. Then the car was all the way over; it crushed, scraped, slid, swung, turned over; was on its wheels for a flash; at least air and light were above again; it pounded, smashed, and slid through brush, against small trees; and was over once more. It ground and skewed in soft soil, horribly; cold water splashed below it. It settled, sucking, and stopped.