He heard their voices blending with the wind, he saw something lifted into the sleigh, and wondered if his daughter had fallen out. Then, as Arthur leaped in and chirruped to his pony, he rose in his seat and shouted furiously: “Halt, or I fire! Choose between death or instant surrender!” And to emphasize his words, he instantly fired into the air, making both their horses snort and rear with terror. Arthur’s only reply was to touch his horse with the whip, making it bound furiously forward. A most unequal race ensued, Arthur’s sleigh being encumbered with the weight of three, while Mr. Dawn was quite alone. One, two, three minutes, and Mr. Dawn’s horse flashed past Arthur’s. Then he drove across the front of the road, shouting, hoarsely: “Stop! There will be a collision!” Cinthia had slipped down senseless in her seat, and nothing but surrender was possible now. With a silent curse at his evil fate, Arthur pulled the lines, forcing his plunging pony to a stand-still, as Everard Dawn continued, menacingly: “I do not wish to harm you, Mr. Varian, but you must give me back my daughter!” Arthur felt like a coward, but he realized that no other course was possible now. With a groan, he answered: “I would rather part with my life than this dear girl, Mr. Dawn. Oh, think a moment, before you sunder our loving hearts, of the despair you are bringing into both our lives!” Everard Dawn drove back to the side of the sleigh where Arthur waited, and said, sternly: “Cinthia!” “She is unconscious, sir.” “Ah, then, it was Cinthia you lifted into the sleigh. Is she hurt?” “It was not Cinthia, but an unconscious woman I found in the road.” “If Cinthia is unconscious, so much the better. We will have no scene with her in transferring her to my charge, and she will not hear what I must say to you.” “Speak on, sir,” Arthur answered most bitterly in his keen resentment. And Mr. Dawn began: “I think very hardly of you, Arthur Varian, for disregarding my words to you this morning. I said frankly to you that reasons of the gravest import forbid the marriage of yourself and Cinthia.” “I had a right to be informed of those reasons, sir,” Arthur said, hotly. “Say you so? Then go to your mother, Arthur Varian, and ask of her the reason why my daughter can never be your wife!” Arthur started in surprise that this man should know aught of his mother, but answered, quickly: “She can not know anything against it, since only this morning she gave her pleased consent.” “She knows better now; and I say again, go to her and ask her for the truth,” replied Everard Dawn, as he stepped out of the sleigh to take possession of Cinthia. Arthur was before him. He lifted the inanimate form in his arms, and kissed the cold, white face in despairing love before he resigned her to the impatient father’s arms.