That evening she held a pen, but it would not move, not while her thoughts were upon it. So, by sheer will, she nerved herself not to think, and wrote mechanically. She wrote a message to Lopez, and another to Dupin, and yet a third. The third brought the tears long before it was finished. An Austrian took the first two, and rode all that night. She kept the other one herself. This was the fifth day of their journey since leaving Murguia's hacienda. They had taken pains to keep behind Lopez. Their pursuer, ahead of them, had not made twenty miles the first day, for he had delayed in order to search here and there. But the second day, he had evidently accepted failure, and hastened on to overtake the Emperor. The Emperor himself, after traveling constantly for a night and a day, had rested a night and half a day to reflect on his late energy, and thereafter he was proceeding as roadside ovations would permit. Accordingly on this, the fifth night, Lopez was close behind the Emperor, and both were within a day of the capital, and less than a day ahead of Driscoll, Jacqueline and Ney. All the next day Jacqueline kept to her coach. She was cross or nervously excited or melancholy, and by erratic turns in every mood that was hopelessly downcast, until her maid became well nigh frantic. At first Ney would hover near in helpless concern, but she ordered him away angrily. However, the storm broke at last when Driscoll reined in and waited at the roadside. She could see him through the little front pane of glass as the carriage drew nearer, and she watched with a fierce hunger in her eyes. All the time she stirred in greater agitation, and her breath came more and more quickly. At the very last moment, when a second later he might have seen her, she sprang to the window, looked once again, then in a fury snatched at the shade and jerked it down. Driscoll paused uncertain, but wheeled and galloped back to the head of the column. Berthe turned to her mistress. She was lying weakly against the cushions, staring at nothing and panting for air. Toward dusk they reached Tuxtla, a little pueblo on the highroad set mid maguey farms that made the rolling hill slopes of Anahuac look like a giant's cabbage patch. In the distance, under two snow-capped peaks beyond, the mosaic domes and sandstone towers and painted walls of the capital glittered in the setting sun like some picture of an Arabian city vaguely known to memory. The travelers were not a dozen miles from their destination, but Berthe announced that madame her mistress would rest at Tuxtla for the night.