"Madam, some explanation--enough at least to mitigate your resentment--natural, I allow."--Jolt, jolt! And still a mortuary silence within the coach! It was disconcerting. Robie for a certainty was driving his best, and already we were beyond the last rare outposts of light on the Lothian Road. "I believe, madam, the inside of five minutes--if you will allow----" I stretched out a protesting hand. In the darkness it encountered Flora's. Our fingers closed upon the thrill. For five, ten beatific seconds our pulses sang together, "I love you! I love you!" in the stuffy silence. "Mosha Saint-Yvey!" spoke up a deliberate voice (Flora caught her hand away), "as far as I can make head and tail of your business--supposing it to have a modicum of head, which I doubt--it appears to me that I have just done you a service; and that makes twice." "A service, madam, I shall ever remember." "I'll chance that, sir; if ye'll kindly not forget _yoursel'_." In resumed silence we must have travelled a mile and a half, or two miles, when Miss Gilchrist let down the sash with a clatter, and thrust her head and mamelone cap forth into the night. "Robie!" Robie pulled up. "The gentleman will alight." It was only wisdom, for we were nearing Swanston. I rose. "Miss Gilchrist, you are a good woman; and I think the cleverest I have met." "Umph," replied she. In the act of stepping forth I turned for a final handshake with Flora, and my foot caught in something and dragged it out upon the road. I stooped to pick it up, and heard the door bang by my ear. "Madam--your shawl!" But the coach lurched forward; the wheels splashed me; and I was left standing alone on the inclement highway. While yet I watched the little red eyes of the vehicle, and almost as they vanished, I heard more rumbling of wheels, and descried two pairs of yellow eyes upon the road, towards Edinburgh. There was just time enough to plunge aside, to leap a fence into a rain-soaked pasture; and there I crouched, the water squishing over my dancing-shoes, while with a flare, a slant of rain, and a glimpse of flogging drivers, two hackney carriages pelted by at a gallop. CHAPTER XXXII EVENTS OF FRIDAY MORNING: THE CUTTING OF THE GORDIAN KNOT