Without a word, he put forth his other hand, broke her clenched fingers apart, as if they had been straws, and took the ribbons from her hold. The frantic animals felt a new hand—a firmer, but a fresh one, and for the moment their terror increased. Down the hill they flew, and the carriage swayed ominously to and fro. Jerome with a side-glance saw the face of the girl beside him, white as death. She did not clutch at the rail, or in any way try to hold herself fast, but clenched her hands before her on her knees, and looked towards the mill-race—towards the deep, green pool above the bridge and the foaming fall below it, and to the grey-stone mill sleeping peacefully on the other side. Then Jerome perceived that, lumbering slowly towards them on the bridge, were two large lorries, piled with bales of cotton goods, and he knew that to run into them meant death. All the despondency he had felt—all the wish to be rid of life and its unasked-for, uncalled-for burdens disappeared, and only the desire to conquer this impending fate remained behind. He found himself mechanically measuring either side of the road, to see if there was no side-way—no escape from the end to which they seemed to be rushing, and his hold on the reins tightened and tightened till it grew to a strain in which he expended all his strength. They were within twenty yards of the bridge, and as yet he had seen no way out of it. He saw every slightest action of all around him, and it recorded itself as indelibly upon his consciousness as if he had had hours of leisure in which to observe it all. He saw how the two stolid-looking carters suddenly became aware of the nature of the position—saw them cast up their hands and run to their horses’ heads, to pull them as far to one side as possible. ‘Idiots!’ he thought, ‘as if that would do any good!’ and even as he thought it, he perceived to the left hand of the road a square embrasure, such as is found in the north of England frequently, though I know not if they exist in the south. In such an embrasure the stones are piled up which the breakers have to operate upon, and in this particular one were piles of stones already broken: it was walled round, and below the wall the bank of the field sloped steeply down. If he could not rein in the horses, and they leaped the wall, the results were not agreeable subjects of contemplation, but even they would be less dreadful than the gruesome fate proffered by the mill-race and the little stone bridge.