Surely never was elopement so quickly planned before, for in ten minutes they were seated in the phaeton warmly wrapped about in heavy robes, and the gray pony was skimming over the road to Washington, bearing the handsome pair--Amber thrilling with joy, Cecil heavy-hearted and miserable. The air was keenly cold, and the snow began to fall so fast that the air was thick with whirling flakes. Amber held the reins herself, and urged the pony to his highest speed as they flew over mile after mile of the lonely road in the gloom of the wintry afternoon. Every moment was an hour to her impatient heart until they should reach the minister’s and be made one ere Cecil learned that his fair young love, so cruelly torn away from him, was already widowed and had always been true to him at heart. Let but this knowledge reach him ere the marriage, and Amber knew that all her hopes would be overthrown. It frightened her to think of the letter to Cecil lying hidden on her breast inside the folds of her warm sealskin jacket, and she determined to destroy it at the very first opportunity. They were five miles on their way now, and they had come so fast that the gray pony was reeking with sweat in spite of the wintry cold. Cecil ventured to expostulate, but she turned on him with a white, reproachful face. “One would think you were reluctant to reach Washington!” she exclaimed. “You mistake me, dear Amber; but you will kill the poor animal if you keep up this rate of speed!” For answer she touched the pony’s back with the whip, and the brave little animal flew forward like the wind, maintaining its high rate of speed for half a mile. Then--perhaps from exhaustion, perhaps from some obstruction in the road--Cecil never knew which--an accident happened. The brave pony stumbled and fell, and Cecil and Amber were both thrown violently out of the phaeton, on either side of the road into the soft white bed of snow with which Mother Nature was spreading the earth. CHAPTER XLVII. WAS SHE DEAD WITH ALL HER SINS UNREPENTED? Cecil was very fortunate, for he rose uninjured from the ground, with the exception of a few bruises. But he trembled with dread when he saw Amber lying as still as death on the pile of rocks where she had fallen. Oh, horrors! was she dead? It was more than likely, for her face was death-like, her eyes closed, and there was a bleeding wound near her temple, where it had struck in falling upon a sharp rock. The poor pony lay among the shafts of the overturned phaeton, as he had fallen, and Cecil surmised that he had broken a limb; but he had no time to investigate, for Amber needed instant attention. It seemed like a merciful provision of Providence that the accident had happened just in front of a neat, pretty cottage, and the inhabitants had witnessed it from their windows. A woman and a little girl hurried out, and helped Cecil to carry Amber into the house.