Even youth, however, could distill but slender hope from this.  The pace was too terrific at which Victor’s car was thundering through the night-bound countryside, it seemed idle to dream that another could overhaul it, even though driven with as much skill and maniacal recklessness.  And Sofia returned to thoughts to which Victor’s innuendo had given definite shape and colour, if with an effect far from that of his intention.  Threatened, the spirit of the girl responded much as sane young flesh will to a cold plunge.  She had forgotten to tremble, and though still tense-strung in every fibre was able to sit still, look steadily into the face of peril, and calculate her chances of cheating it.

Presently, in a tone so even it won begrudged admiration, she asked: 

“Where are you taking me?”

“Do you really care?”

“Enough to ask.”

“But why should I tell you?”

“No reason.  I presume it doesn’t really matter, I’ll know soon enough.”

“Then I don’t mind enlightening you.  We’re bound for the Continent by way of Limehouse.  A launch is waiting for us in Limehouse Reach, a yacht off Gravesend.  Oh, I have forgotten nothing!  By daybreak we’ll be at sea.”

“We?”

“You and I.”

“You deceive yourself, Prince Victor.  I shan’t accompany you.”

“How amusing!  And is it a secret, how you propose to stand against my will?”

Sofia was silent for a little; then, “I can kill myself,” she said, quietly.

“To be sure you can!  And when I tire of you, perhaps I’ll humour your morbid inclinations—­if they still exist.”

“You are a fool,” Sofia returned, bluntly, “if you think I shall go aboard that yacht alive.”

“Brava!” Victor laughed, and clapped his hands.  “Brava! brava!”

He sat up for another look out of the rear window, sucked at his breath even more sharply than before, and snatching up the speaking-tube pronounced urgent words in Chinese.

The head of the chauffeur, in stark silhouette against the leading glow, bent toward the tube, and nodded rapidly.  And to the deep-throated roar of an unmuffled exhaust, the heavy car leaped, like a spirited animal stung by whip and spur, and settled into a stride to which what had gone before was as a preliminary canter to the heartbreaking drive down to the home-stretch.

Lights began to dot the roadside.  Widely spaced at first, unbroken ranks were soon streaking past the tear-blind windows.  Outskirts of London were being traversed; but neither driving sheets of rain against which human vision failed, nor the chance of encountering belated traffic, worked any slackening of the pace.  Only when a corner had to be negotiated did the car slow down, and then never to the point of sanity; and the turn once rounded, its flight would again become headlong, lunatic, suicidal.

The stringed lamps wove a wavering luminous ribbon without end; a breeze laden with the wet fragrance of London drove great gusts of rain in stringing showers through the broken window.  Turns and twists grew more frequent, apparently favouring the pursuit.