At last the silence impressed her with a vague uneasiness.  It was time to bring it to an end.

“Surely, monsieur, we have passed the park gate where we were to pick up my brother.”

Her companion neither answered nor moved.  She thought that perhaps the rumble of the heavy caleche had drowned her voice.

“I say, monsieur,” she repeated, leaning forwards, “that we have passed the place where we were to meet Monsieur de Vivonne.”

He took no notice.

“Monsieur,” she cried, “I again remark that we have passed the gates.”

There was no answer.

A thrill ran through her nerves.  Who or what could he be, this silent man?  Then suddenly it struck her that he might be dumb.

“Perhaps monsieur is afflicted,” she said.  “Perhaps monsieur cannot speak.  If that be the cause of your silence, will you raise your hand, and I shall understand.”  He sat rigid and silent.

Then a sudden mad fear came upon her, shut up in the dark with this dreadful voiceless thing.  She screamed in her terror, and strove to pull down the window and open the door.  But a grip of steel closed suddenly round her wrist and forced her back into her seat.  And yet the man’s body had not moved, and there was no sound save the lurching and rasping of the carriage and the clatter of the flying horses.  They were already out on the country roads far beyond Versailles.  It was darker than before, heavy clouds had banked over the heavens, and the rumbling of thunder was heard low down on the horizon.

The lady lay back panting upon the leather cushions of the carriage.  She was a brave woman, and yet this sudden strange horror coming upon her at the moment when she was weakest had shaken her to the soul.  She crouched in the corner, staring across with eyes which were dilated with terror at the figure on the other side.  If he would but say something!  Any revelation, any menace, was better than this silence.  It was so dark now that she could hardly see his vague outline, and every instant, as the storm gathered, it became still darker.  The wind was blowing in little short angry puffs, and still there was that far-off rattle and rumble.  Again the strain of the silence was unbearable.  She must break it at any cost.

“Sir,” said she, “there is some mistake here.  I do not know by what right you prevent me from pulling down the window and giving my directions to the coachman.”

He said nothing.

“I repeat, sir, that there is some mistake.  This is the carriage of my brother, Monsieur de Vivonne, and he is not a man who will allow his sister to be treated uncourteously.”

A few heavy drops of rain splashed against one window.  The clouds were lower and denser.  She had quite lost sight of that motionless figure, but it was all the more terrible to her now that it was unseen.  She screamed with sheer terror, but her scream availed no more than her words.