How Babbie spent the night of August fourth.

How had the Egyptian been spirited here from the Spittal?  I did not ask the question.  To interest myself in Babbie at that dire hour of Margaret’s life would have been as impossible to me as to sit down to a book.  To others, however, it is only an old woman on whom the parlor door of the manse has closed, only a garrulous dominie that is in pain outside it.  Your eyes are on the young wife.

When Babbie was plucked off the hill, she thought as little as Gavin that her captor was Rob Dow.  Close as he was to her, he was but a shadow until she screamed the second time, when he pressed her to the ground and tied his neckerchief over her mouth.  Then, in the moment that power of utterance was taken from her, she saw the face that had startled her at Nanny’s window.  Half-carried, she was borne forward rapidly, until some one seemed to rise out of the broom and strike them both.  They had only run against the doctor’s trap; and huddling her into it, Dow jumped up beside her.  He tied her hands together with a cord.  For a time the horse feared the darkness in front more than the lash behind; but when the rains became terrific, it rushed ahead wildly—­probably with its eyes shut.

In three minutes Babbie went through all the degrees of fear.  In the first she thought Lord Rintoul had kidnapped her; but no sooner had her captor resolved himself into Dow, drunk with the events of the day and night, than in the earl’s hands would have lain safety.  Next, Dow was forgotten in the dread of a sudden death which he must share.  And lastly, the rain seemed to be driving all other horrors back, that it might have her for its own.  Her perils increased to the unbearable as quickly as an iron in the fire passes through the various stages between warmth and white heat.  Then she had to do something; and as she could not cry out, she flung herself from the dogcart.  She fell heavily in Caddani Wood, but the rain would not let her lie there stunned.  It beat her back to consciousness, and she sat up on her knees and listened breathlessly, staring in the direction the trap had taken, as if her eyes could help her ears.

All night, I have said, the rain poured, but those charges only rode down the deluge at intervals, as now and again one wave greater than the others stalks over the sea.  In the first lull it appeared to Babbie that the storm had swept by, leaving her to Dow.  Now she heard the rubbing of the branches, and felt the torn leaves falling on her gown.  She rose to feel her way out of the wood with her bound hands, then sank in terror, for some one had called her name.  Next moment she was up again, for the voice was Gavin’s, who was hurrying after her, as he thought, down Windyghoul.  He was no farther away than a whisper might have carried on a still night, but she dared not pursue him, for already Dow was coming back.  She could not see him, but she heard the horse whinny and the rocking of the dogcart.  Dow was now at the brute’s head, and probably it tried to bite him, for he struck it, crying: