Mrs. Chester and the Miss Jupps urged her to depart; were waiting for her. Clara Lake resisted. "There!" she suddenly exclaimed to them, "we cannot go. It is past ten: we have let the hour go by, and the train is gone." "Oh!" said Mrs. Chester, "we can get a carriage and overtake it." She went out with them--resistance appeared to be over; she _felt_ that it was over, and that she could not help herself--went out to look for a carriage. They ran about, down lanes and in the open fields, and could not see one; but a butcher's cart came up in the lane; one of them said that would do as well as a carriage, and they all got into it. They seemed to fly, going along at a fearful pace, but through a most dreary-looking country, the skies gloomy, the scenery barren, and the road muddy, so muddy that it splashed up upon them as they sat: there were also shallow, dismal ponds through which they drove. All this haste seemed to be to catch the train, but suddenly a noise was heard behind them, and it was known that it was the train: they had gone so fast as to outstrip it. Their cart stopped to wait, and Clara, when the noise came close, looked behind, but could only distinguish something black which whirled by them, turned round, came back, turned again, and pulled up. "Why, it is a hearse!" she screamed out (but in surprise, not fear), to Mrs. Chester. Yes, it was a hearse, all black, and two men sat upon the box. Clara looked out, expecting to see the rest of their party _on_ it, but there was no one but the two men: the one she could not see, for he seemed to hide his face; but she caught, fixed upon her, the strangely black eyes of the driver, the blackest eyes she ever saw in her life: of the rest of his face she remembered nothing. "Come," said he, "there's no time to lose;" and they all four descended from the cart. Clara got on to the hearse first, and was settling her cloak around her, when she heard the cart drive off, taking the road home again; and, seated in it as before, were Mrs. Chester and Mary and Margaret Jupp. "Why don't you come with me?" she called out; "why are you going back?" "No," said Mrs. Chester, "that hearse is for you, not for us;" and they drove off. The hearse also drove off the contrary way, and Mrs. Lake found herself sinking into its interior. She was calm enough for a moment, but suddenly she knew that she had been entrapped into it, and that she was being taken to her burial. With a dreadful scream she awoke. The scream awoke Mr. Lake. She was bathed in perspiration, and shaking as in an ague fit. In vain he asked what was the matter, whether she was ill: she could not speak to tell him, and it was several minutes before she was able in any degree to overcome the fright, or relate it to him.