For a few miles all went well:  but the roads hereabouts were very soft and boggy; it was next to impossible sometimes to know whether we were right or not; and after a while one of my men waited for me—­he that carried the lantern to guide the rest of us.  The first I saw of him was his horse’s ears, very black, like a pair of horns, against the lighted mist.  “Sir,” he said, “I do not know the road.  I can see not five yards, light or no light.”

I called out to James.

“James,” said I, “do you know where we are?”

“No, sir,” said he, “at least not very well.”

“Cousin,” I said—­(for Dolly had reined up her horse close behind, not knowing, I suppose, that I was so near).  “Cousin, I am sorry to trouble you; but unless you can lead us—­”

“Give me the lantern,” she said sharply to my man.

She took it from him, and pushed forwards.  I wheeled my horse after her and followed.  The rest fell in behind somewhere.  I did not say one word, good or bad; for a certain thought had come to me of what might happen.  She thought, I suppose, that Anne was behind her.

So impatient was my Cousin Dolly, that, certain of her road, as she supposed, she urged her horse presently into a kind of amble.  I urged mine to the same; and so, for perhaps ten minutes, we rode in silence.  I could hear the horses behind—­or rather the sucking noise of their feet,—­fall behind a little, and then a little more.  The men were talking, too; and so was Anne, to them—­for she liked men’s company, and did not get very much of it in Dolly’s service—­and this I suppose was the reason why they did not notice how the distance grew between us.  After about ten minutes I heard a man shout; but the fog deadened his voice, so that it sounded a great way off; and Dolly, I suppose, thought he was not of our party at all; for she never turned her head; and besides, she was intent on hating me, and that, I think, absorbed her more than she knew.  I said nothing; I rode on in silence, seeing her like an outline only in the dark, now and again—­and, more commonly nothing but a kind of lighted mist, now and then obscured.  It appeared to me that we were very far away to the right; but then I never professed to know the way; and it was no business of mine.  Truly the very courses of nature fought against my cousin and her passionate ways.  Presently I turned at a sound; and there was James’ mare at my heels.  I knew her even in the dark, by the white blaze on her forehead.  I had been listening for the voices; and had not noticed he was there.  I reined up, instantly; and as he came level I plucked his sleeve.

“James,” I whispered in Italian, lest Dolly should catch even a phrase of what I said—­“not a word.  Go back and find the others.  Leave us.  We will find our way.”

James was an exceedingly discreet and sensible fellow—­as I knew.  He reined back upon the instant, and was gone in the black mist; and I could hear his horse’s footsteps passing into the distance.  What he thought, God and he alone knew; for he never told me.