The first shadow that crossed him was at the corner of the road which led to the Red House. There he paused for a moment, hearing behind him a sudden rush and din upon the road, the sound as of horses that had run away. Then they appeared in sight, tearing onward, coming full speed towards him, making his own horse plunge and struggle between the shafts. Edgar flung the reins to his groom, and jumped down instantly to see if he could be of use--but had not touched the ground when they rushed past him--Mr. Pimpernel’s bays, a high-spirited, high-fed, excitable pair. The reins were flying loosely about their necks, the horses were half-mad with fright and agitation, and a succession of screams proved, if the gleam of feminine dress had not been enough to do so, that the light waggon had not its ordinary passengers, but was driven by a lady. It swept round the corner like a whirlwind, and Edgar with hopeless horror rushed after. As he did so, he perceived two figures running wildly across a field, in advance, to cut off their progress. It was Mr. Pimpernel and Arthur Arden. Edgar stopped, seeing how hopeless was an idea of being of use, and watched with breathless interest the course of the two men who might yet be in time. Then there was a plunge--a shriek--the appearance as of something falling, like the flight of a bird or an arrow, from the high seat to the ground. Edgar shut his eyes involuntarily with a movement of sympathetic pain. When he opened them again, the horses were standing trembling and panting, with the groom at their heads, who had appeared, he could not tell how or whence; and Mr. Pimpernel and Arthur Arden were standing each by a little particoloured heap on the roadside. A sudden wild fancy that Clare might have been one of the sufferers came into Edgar’s mind, and he called to his man to follow him, and hastened up to the scene of the accident. When he reached it, he found Mr. Pimpernel, pale as death and trembling, lifting up his daughter, who had been thrown upon a mossy bank at the foot of the hedge. Alice was ghastly, with little streams of blood trickling down her forehead; but she was conscious, and not apparently severely injured. “It is nothing, papa; I am only scratched and shaken, that is all,” she was saying, while her father, too much agitated to understand, dragged her up in his arms and overwhelmed her with incoherent questions. Edgar ran and brought her water from a pool close by, which was not of the clearest, and yet sufficed to wash the trickling drops off her forehead, and lessen her father’s apprehensions. And then he produced his travelling flask of sherry, which revived her still more completely. It did not occur to him even that there was another sufferer, nor that his cousin whom he had seen a moment before was lending no assistance here. “See, I can stand--I am not hurt, papa; I am only shaken,” Alice was repeating, till Edgar almost loved her for her pertinacity.