‘At the gate?’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘You fool!  You imbecile!’ Mr. Pomeroy roared, as he shook him with all his strength.  ‘The carriage is at the other gate.’

Mr. Thomasson gasped, partly with surprise, partly under the influence of Pomeroy’s violence.  ‘At the other gate?’ he faltered.  ’But—­there was a carriage here.  I saw it.  I put her in it.  Not a minute ago!’

‘Then, by heaven, it was your carriage, and you have betrayed me,’ Pomeroy retorted; and shook his trembling victim until his teeth chattered and his eyes protruded.  ’I thought I heard wheels and I came to see.  If you don’t tell me the truth this instant,’ he continued furiously, ‘I’ll have the life out of you.’

‘It is the truth,’ Mr. Thomasson stammered, blubbering with fright.  ’It was a carriage that came up—­and stopped.  I thought it was yours, and I put her in.  And it went on.’

‘A lie, man—­a lie!’

’I swear it is true!  I swear it is!  If it were not should I be going back to the house?  Should I be going to face you?’ Mr. Thomasson protested.

The argument impressed Pomeroy; his grasp relaxed.  ’The devil is in it, then!’ he muttered.  ’For no one else could have set a carriage at that gate at that minute!  Anyway, I’ll know.  Come on!’ he continued recklessly snatching up the lanthorn, which had fallen on its side and was not extinguished.  ’We’ll after her!  By the Lord, we’ll after her.  They don’t trick me so easily!’

The tutor ventured a terrified remonstrance, but Mr. Pomeroy, deaf to his entreaties and arguments, bundled him over the fence, and, gripping his arm, hurried him as fast as his feet would carry him across the sward to the other gate.  A carriage, its lamps burning brightly, stood in the road.  Mr. Pomeroy exchanged a few curt words with the driver, thrust in the tutor, and followed himself.  On the instant the vehicle dashed away, the coachman cracking his whip and shouting oaths at his horses.

The hedges flew by, pale glimmering walls in the lamplight; the mud flew up and splashed Mr. Pomeroy’s face; still he hung out of the window, his hand on the fastening of the door, and a brace of pistols on the ledge before him; while the tutor, shuddering at these preparations, hoping against hope that they would overtake no one, cowered in the farther corner.  With every turn of the road or swerve of the horses Pomeroy expected to see the fugitives’ lights.  Unaware or oblivious that the carriage he was pursuing had the start of him by so much that at top speed he could scarcely look to overtake it under the hour, his rage increased with every disappointment.  Although the pace at which they travelled over a rough road was such as to fill the tutor with instant terror and urgent thoughts of death—­although first one lamp was extinguished and then another, and the carriage swung so violently as from moment to moment to threaten an overturn, Mr. Pomeroy never ceased to hang out of the window, to yell at the horses and upbraid the driver.