"That's all very well," said he, "but you can't always go on caring for Pinckney." "Can't I?" said Phyl. "No, you can't. He's going to get married and then where will you be?" Phyl, staring over the horses' heads as though she were staring at some black prospect, set her teeth. Then she spoke and her voice was like the voice of a person who speaks under mesmerism. "I cared for him before he was born and I'll care for him after I'm dead and there's no use in bothering a bit about it now. _You_ couldn't understand. No one can understand, not even he." The road here bordered a stretch of waste land; Silas gazed over it, his face was drawn and hard. Then he suddenly blazed out. Laying the whip over the horses and turning them so sharply that the phaeton was all but upset he put them over the waste land; another touch of the whip and they bolted. Beyond the waste land lay a rice field and between field and waste land stood a fence; there was doubtless a ditch on the other side of the fence. "You'll kill us!" cried Phyl. "Good--so," replied Silas, "horses and all." She had half risen from her seat, she sat down again holding tight to the side rail and staring ahead. Death and destruction lay waiting behind that fence, leaping every moment nearer. She did not care in the least. She could see that Silas, despite his words, was making every effort to rein in, the impetus to drive to hell and smash everything up had passed; she watched his hands grow white all along the tendon ridges with the strain. The whole thing was extraordinary and curious but unfearful, a storm of wind seemed blowing in her face. Then like a switched out light all things vanished. CHAPTER IV Twenty yards from the fence the off side wheel had gone. The phaeton, flinging its occupants out, tilted, struck the earth at the trace coupling just as a man might strike it with his shoulder, dragged for five yards or so, breaking dash board and mud guard and brought the off side horse down as though it had been poleaxed. Silas, with the luck that always fell to him in accidents, was not even stunned. Phyl was lying like a dead creature just where she had been flung amongst some bent grass. He rushed to her. She was not dead, her pulse told that, nor did she seem injured in any way. He left her, ran to the horses, undid the traces and got the fallen horse on its feet, then he stripped them of their harness and turned them loose. Having done this he returned to the girl. Phyl was just regaining consciousness; as he reached her she half sat up leaning on her right arm. "Where are the horses?" said she. They were her first thought. "I've let them loose--there they are."