Making allowance for the customs of the country, they were passing a very innocently diverting afternoon; and Margaret, though secretly annoyed at finding that Barker would not talk about Claudius, or add in any way to her information, was nevertheless congratulating herself upon the smooth termination of the interview.  She had indeed only accepted the invitation in the hope of learning something more about Claudius and his “other reason.”  But she also recognised that, though Barker were unwilling to speak of the Doctor, he might have made himself very disagreeable by taking advantage of the confession of interest she had volunteered in asking so direct a question.  But Barker had taken no such lead, and never referred to Claudius in all the ramblings of his polite conversation.

He was in the midst of a description of Mrs. Orlando Van Sueindell’s last dinner-party, which he had unfortunately missed, when his browns, less peaceably disposed than most of the lazy bean-fed cattle one sees on the Newport avenue, took it into their heads that it would be a joyous thing to canter down a steep place into the sea.  The road turned, with a sudden dip, across a little neck of land separating the bay from the harbour, and the descent was, for a few yards, very abrupt.  At this point, then, the intelligent animals conceived the ingenious scheme of bolting, with that eccentricity of device which seems to characterise overfed carriage-horses.  In an instant they were off, and it was clear there would be no stopping them—­from a trot to a break, from a canter to a gallop, from a gallop to a tearing, breakneck, leave-your-bones-behind-you race, all in a moment, down to the sea.

Barker was not afraid, and he did what he could.  He was not a strong man, and he knew himself no match for the two horses, but he hoped by a sudden effort, repeated once or twice, to scare the runaways into a standstill, as is sometimes possible.  Acting immediately on his determination, as he always did, he wound one hand in each rein, and half rising from his high seat, jerked with all his might.  Margaret held her breath.

But alas for the rarity of strength in saddlers’ work!  The off-rein snapped away like a thread just where the buckle leads half of it over to the near horse, and the strain on the right hand being thus suddenly removed, the horses’ heads were jerked violently to the left, and they became wholly unmanageable.  Barker was silent, and instantly dropped the unbroken rein.  As for Margaret, she sat quite still, holding to the low rail-back of her seat, and preparing for a jump.  They were by this time nearly at the bottom of the descent, and rapidly approaching a corner where a great heap of rocks made the prospect hideous.  To haul the horses over to the left would have been destruction, as the ground fell away on that side to a considerable depth down to the rocks below.  Then Barker did a brave thing.