But the carriage might be smashed.  He was ignorant of the road she had chosen for her return.  Out of Wiltshire there would be no cliffs, quarries, river-banks, presenting dangers.  Those dangers, however, spring up when horses have the frenzy.

Charlotte was nodded at, for a signal to depart; and she drove off, speculating on the bullet of a grey eye, which was her brother’s adieu to her.

The earl had apparently a curiosity to inspect vacant rooms.  His Aminta’s drawing-room, her boudoir, her bed-chamber, were submissive in showing bed, knickknacks, furniture.  They told the tale of a corpse.

He washed and dressed, and went out to his club to dine, hating the faces of the servants of the house, just able to bear with the attentions of his valet.

Thunder was rattling at ten at night.  The house was again the tomb.

She had high courage, that girl.  She might be in a bed, with her window-blind up, calmly waiting for the flashes:  lightning excited her.  He had seen her lying at her length quietly, her black hair scattered on the pillow, like shadow of twigs and sprays on moonlit grass, illuminated intermittently; smiling to him, but her heart out and abroad, wild as any witch’s.  If on the road, she would not quail.  But it was necessary to be certain of her having a trusty postillion.

He walked through the drench and scream of a burst cloud to the posting-office.  There, after some trouble, he obtained information directing him to the neighbouring mews.  He had thence to find his way to the neighbouring pot-house.

The report of the postillion was, on the whole, favourable.  The man understood horses—­was middle-aged—­no sot; he was also a man with an eye for weather, proverbially in the stables a cautious hand—­slow ’Old Slow-and-sure,’ he was called; by name, Joshua Abnett.

‘Oh, Joshua Abnett?’ said the earl, and imprinted it on his memory, for the service it was to do during the night.

Slow-and-sure Joshua Abnett would conduct her safely, barring accidents.  For accidents we must all be prepared.  She was a heroine in an accident.  The earl recalled one and more:  her calm face, brightened eyes, easy laughter.  Hysterics were not in her family.

She did wrong to let that fellow Morsfield accompany her.  Possibly he had come across her on the road, and she could not shake him off.  Judging by all he knew of her, the earl believed she would not have brought the fellow into the grounds of Steignton of her free will.  She had always a particular regard for decency.

According to the rumour, Morsfield and the woman Pagnell were very thick together.  He barked over London of his being a bitten dog.  He was near to the mad dog’s fate, as soon as a convenient apology for stopping his career could be invented.

The thinking of the lesson to Morsfield on the one hand, and of the slow-and-sure postillion Joshua Abriett on the other, lulled Lord Ormont to a short repose in his desolate house.  Of Weyburn he had a glancing thought, that the young man would be a good dog to guard the countess from a mad dog, as he had reckoned in commissioning him.