“I have every reason to think it will suit me perfectly—­and you too.”

The tone of the man which, hitherto, though mocking had been in the main indulgent, had suddenly, harshly, changed.  The wife dropped into the corner of the carriage among her furs and wraps, and said no more.

In another quarter of an hour the carriage turned a corner of the road, and came upon a tall building, of which the high irregular outline was just visible through the growing darkness.  In front of it stood a group of men with lanterns, and the carriage stopped beside them.

A noise of tongues arose, and Mr. Melrose let down the window.

“Is this where the road is flooded?” he asked of a stout man in a whitish coat and cap who had come forward to speak to the coachman.

“Aye, sir—­but you’ll get through.  In an hour’s time, mebbe ye couldn’t do it.  The water fro’ the mill-race is over t’ road, but it’s nobbut a foot deep as yet.  Yo’ll do it varra well—­but yo’d best not lose time!”

“Edmund!”—­screamed the voice from inside—­“Edmund!—­let me out—­let me out at once—­I shall stay here with baby for the night.”

Mr. Melrose took no notice whatever.

“Can you send those men of yours alongside us—­in case there is any danger of the coachman losing the road?” he said, addressing the man.

“Aye, they’ll keep along t’ bank with the lanterns.  Noa fear, missis, noa fear!”

Another scream from inside.  Mr. Melrose shut the window abruptly, and the coachman whipped up his horses.

“Let me get out, Edmund!—­I will not go on!”

Melrose brought a hand of iron down on his wife’s wrist.

“Be quiet, Netta!  Of all the little idiots!—­There now, the brat’s begun!”—­for the poor babe, awakened, had set up a wail.  “Damn it!”—­he turned fiercely to the nurse—­“Keep it quiet, will you?”

On swayed the carriage, the water splashing against the wheels.  Carried by the two labourers who walked along a high bank beside the road, a couple of lanterns threw their wavering light on the flooded highway, the dripping, wind-lashed trees, the steaming horses.  The yellow rays showed the whirling eddies of autumnal leaves, and found fantastic reflection in the turbid water through which the horses were struggling.  Presently—­after half a mile or so—­a roar on the right hand.  Mrs. Melrose screamed again, only to be once more savagely silenced by her husband.  It was the roar of the mill-race approaching the weir, over which it was rushing in sheets of foam.  The swollen river, a thunderous whiteness beside the road, seemed every moment as if it must break through the raised bank, and sweep carriage and horses into its own abyss of fury.  Mrs. Melrose was now too terrified to cry out.  She sat motionless and quivering, her baby on her lap, her white pointed face and straining eyes touched every now and then by a ghostly gleam from the lanterns.  Beside her—­whispering occasional words in Italian to her mistress—­sat the Italian nurse, pale too, but motionless, a woman from the Campagna, of a Roman port and dignity, who would have scorned to give the master whom she detested any excuse for dubbing her a weakling.