They were to have more of it, however, than she had bargained for. Stuart's remonstrances were not listened to; the ladies entered their carriage and drove off. But their driver, who was not Mrs. Powder's servant, had improved his leisure time during their stay in the house by making visits to a neighbouring drinking saloon; and now, confused by the mingled efforts of wind and brandy, took the road north instead of south from the village. To spare her sister, and indeed herself, Annabella had taken a hackney coach, and this was what came of it. The ladies were thinking of something else and did not see what their charioteer was doing. Annabella broke at last a silence which had prevailed for some time. 'What did she say?' 'Said she didn't care.' 'She would not listen to you!' 'Not this time.' 'Then there is no chance,' cried Annabella in despair. 'They will make all their arrangements now. Stuart is going to sail the week after next, I know.' 'I wish I could get speech of him!' said Wych Hazel, knitting her brows in the darkness. This too was to fall to her lot in an unexpected manner and measure. It might have been three quarters of an hour, or more, from the time of their meeting that gentleman in front of Mrs. Rhodes's cottage, when Stuart happened to be in the street again and crossing the main road at the corner where the carriage had turned the wrong way. The storm had now grown to be furious; wind and snow driving so across the street that to hold his umbrella was no longer possible. As with difficulty he closed it, a carriage stopped immediately before him, the door opened, and two ladies sprang out into the storm. He had nearly run against them again, before he saw that they were the same ladies. And they saw him. 'O Mr. Nightingale!' cried the foremost, forgetting everything in distress,—'do help us. We've got a drunken coachman.' 'Miss Powder!—But how are you here yet?' 'O he took us ever so far on the way to Albany before we found it out. He's quite stupid. What shall we do?' A few steps in the snow, taken with extreme difficulty, brought them to the shelter of a village hotel. Here the matter was debated. Stuart advised their spending the night quietly where they were. But Annabella would not listen to this. "Her mother," "her mother"—she urged; "her mother would be frightened to death." Write, Stuart suggested. Miss Powder did not believe any messenger would go. Stuart offered to be the messenger himself. Annabella refused, obstinately. I think she did not put enough faith in him even for that. She would have a carriage and proceed on her journey forthwith. Annabella shewed herself determined, and Hazel did not oppose her decisions, nor have much to say in the matter generally.