But in the midst of the struggle Nigel Anstruthers stopped suddenly.  He had stumbled again, and risen raging and stained with damp earth.  Now he stood still, panting for breath—­as still as he had stood after the click of the gate.  Was he—­listening?  What was he listening to?  Had she moved in her excitement, and was it possible he had caught the sound?  No, he was listening to something else.  Far up the road it echoed, but coming nearer every moment, and very fast.  Another horse—­a big one—­galloping hard.  Whosoever it was would pass this place; it could only be a man—­God grant that he would not go by so quickly that his attention would not be arrested by a shriek!  Cry out she must—­and if he did not hear and went galloping on his way she would have betrayed herself and be lost.

She bit off a groan by biting her lip.

“You who died to-day—­now—­now!”

Nearer and nearer.  No human creature could pass by a thing like this—­it would not be possible.  And Childe Harold, backing and fighting, scented the other horse and neighed fiercely and high.  The rider was slackening his pace; he was near the lane.  He had turned into it and stopped.  Now for her one frantic cry—­but before she could gather power to give it forth, the man who had stopped had flung himself from his saddle and was inside the garden speaking.  A big voice and a clear one, with a ringing tone of authority.

“What are you doing here?  And what is the matter with Miss Vanderpoel’s horse?” it called out.

Now there was danger of the swoop into the darkness—­great danger—­though she clutched at the hedge that she might feel its thorns and hold herself to the earth.

“You!” Nigel Anstruthers cried out.  “You!” and flung forth a shout of laughter.

“Where is she?” fiercely.  “Lady Anstruthers is terrified.  We have been searching for hours.  Only just now I heard on the marsh that she had been seen to ride this way.  Where is she, I say?”

A strong, angry, earthly voice—­not part of the melodrama—­not part of a dream, but a voice she knew, and whose sound caused her heart to leap to her throat, while she trembled from head to foot, and a light, cold dampness broke forth on her skin.  Something had been a dream—­her wild, desolate ride—­the slew tolling; for the voice which commanded with such human fierceness was that of the man for whom the heavy bell had struck forth from the church tower.

Sir Nigel recovered himself brilliantly.  Not that he did not recognise that he had been a fool again and was in a nasty place; but it was not for the first time in his life, and he had learned how to brazen himself out of nasty places.

“My dear Mount Dunstan,” he answered with tolerant irritation, “I have been having a devil of a time with female hysterics.  She heard the bell toll and ran away with the idea that it was for you, and paid you the compliment of losing her head.  I came on her here when she had ridden her horse half to death and they had both come a cropper.  Confound women’s hysterics!  I could do nothing with her.  When I left her for a moment she ran away and hid herself.  She is concealed somewhere on the place or has limped off on to the marsh.  I wish some New York millionairess would work herself into hysteria on my humble account.”