As soon as they were through the lodge-gates, therefore, he began to clamour to change places with Chris. The worried Holmes protested in vain.  Chris, though firmly refusing to sit behind, was quite willing to give her place at the wheel to her brother; and the change was speedily effected, remonstrance notwithstanding.

“We can’t come to any harm on our own drive,” was the careless consolation she threw to the perturbed man behind her, who then and there solemnly swore to his inner soul that whatever the outcome of the venture he would never again trust himself or the car to the tender mercies of the Wyndham family.

Finding himself thus ignored, he stood up and leaned over the boy’s shoulder to give directions in the face of any sudden emergency that might arise, though Noel was obviously in no mood to pay any attention to them.  As he remarked later, when recounting the adventure, he knew in his bones that there was going to be an accident; but the nature of it he could hardly be expected to foresee.

In fact, for a brief space all went well.  The motor buzzed merrily along the drive, and it almost seemed as if the escapade would end without mishap, when, as they rounded the bend that led to the house, Noel unexpectedly put on speed.  They shot forward at a great pace under the arching trees, and forthwith suddenly came disaster.  Swift as a lightning flash it came—­too swift for realization, almost too swift for sight.  It was only a tiny, racing figure that darted for the fraction of a second in front of the car, and then—­with a squeal half-choked—­was lost in the rush of the wheels.  It was only Cinders chasing a rabbit which he was destined never to catch.

Chris’s shriek of agony rang as far as the house.  In another moment she would have thrown herself headlong from the car, but Holmes was too quick for her.  Not in vain had Holmes been through a three-years’ war; not in vain did he hold himself responsible for the young wife of the master whom that war had taught him to love.  Almost before she had sprung from her seat he had caught her, forcing her down again, holding her by grim strength from her mad purpose.  She struggled with him fiercely, hysterically; but Holmes’s grip never relaxed.  She bore the marks of it upon her arms for weeks after.

And while he held her, baffling her utmost efforts to free herself, he was giving directions to Noel, whose nerve had departed completely with the shock of the catastrophe, giving them over and over again—­steadily, insistently, and very distinctly, till they took effect at last, though only just in time.

They were dangerously near the house before, in response to the boy’s frantic efforts, the car slackened and finally, under Holmes’s reiterated directions, ran to a standstill.

Chris, in a perfect frenzy by that time, wrenched herself free and sprang down.  Her husband, who had rushed from the house at her cry, was close to her as she reached the ground, but she sped away without so much as seeing him.