There was a deafening explosion, and a tremendous jerk, as the frightened horses tore off at full gallop along the High Street, the chariot swaying from side to side on its tall springs, while all the postboys could do was to keep their seats. Shrieks and cries arose as the horses tore along, gathering speed at each stride, and growing more frightened at the gathering noise. On past the various houses, past his home and the works, and Richard clung desperately to the seat. For a moment he thought of throwing himself out, but in that moment he saw himself caught by the wheel, and whirled round and beaten into a shapeless pulp, and with a cry of horror he sank back. On still, and on, at a wild gallop; and, to his horror, Richard saw that the horses were making straight for the great chalk pit, and in imagination he saw the carriage drawn right over the precipice, to fall crushed to atoms upon the hard masses below. "I cannot bear this," he exclaimed; and, turning the handle, he was about to leap out when the fore wheel of the chariot came with fearful violence against the short thick milestone; there was a tremendous crash as the vehicle was turned completely over, and Richard knew no more. A dozen stout fellows, who had run panting after the carriage, came up a few minutes later, to find one of the postboys holding the trembling horses, which, after being released from the wreck, they had succeeded in stopping, and the other was striving hard to extricate Richard from where he lay, crushed and bleeding, amidst the splinters of the broken chariot. The sturdy foundry-men soon tore away the part of the carriage that held the injured man, and a gate being taken from its hinges, he was carried back to the town; the doctor, who had been attending Eve at the vicarage, where she had been carried, having reached his house to fetch some medicine, which he sent on with a message to Mrs Glaire, who was in ignorance of the catastrophe, to come home at once. Volume 3, Chapter XIX. REST AT LAST. A couple of months had glided away, during which time Richard Glaire had recovered from the severe injuries he had received in the accident, and then, as he said, gone on the continent to recruit his shattered nerves; though in confidence Doctor Purley told his lodger Dick Glaire's nerves were stronger than ever, in consequence of eight weeks' enforced attention to the orders of his medical man. Richard wanted to get away, for several things had occurred to annoy him. He was only just recovering, when the news reached him that Daisy Banks had become Tom Podmore's wife; and this was at a time when he was in the habit of saying bitter things to Mrs Glaire about the disgraceful arrangement by which Eve was still at the vicarage, where she had been carried from the church, and where she had lain through her long illness which followed, during which she was for weeks delirious, and knew neither of those who watched incessantly by her side.