"How in the world did you happen to know that detestable doctor? I didn't suppose anybody had ever seen him before he came here."

"Detestable you may well call him," said Victor, below his breath, and with a sort of groan. "I'd rather have met the arch-fiend himself!"

Then hastily remembering himself, he apologized, exclaiming, with a laugh, that the fellow always put him out of temper, and bored him to death, and he hoped he should never see him again, and he didn't mean to trouble himself any further about him. With that last resolution, his spirits rose, and in a few minutes he was as gay as ever. We were dashing along at such an inspiriting pace, that no one could help throwing dull care, and all things sad and gloomy, to the winds, and being pro tem. in the highest spirits.

"I am sure you drive as well as you dance," said Victor, putting the reins into my hands. "Let me see whether you know how to handle the ribbons."

Put upon my mettle in that way, nothing could have induced me to have declined the undertaking, though I happened to know a thing or two in the early history of the bays that Mr. Viennet was evidently ignorant of, and the recollection of which put a nervous intensity into the grasp I had upon the reins.

"Admirable!" said Victor, with enthusiasm; "I see you understand what you are about. You manage those beasts as well as I could, and there's no denying it, they do pull."

"_Pull_ isn't the word," I thought; "but no matter."

"What a good road!" exclaimed Victor. "We're going like the wind.

Ellerton, this is fine, is it not?"

"Charming," said Ellerton, feebly, from the back seat; "charming; I never saw a lady drive so well; but don't you think, it's getting so dark, it would be better for you to take the reins? You can see better, you know."

"On the contrary," said Victor, with great glee, "on the contrary; the female vision, you know, is proverbially the sharpest. Shall I touch up that near horse? He rather lags," he continued, wickedly, to me.

"Oh no, thank you!" I said, breathlessly, but trying to laugh.

"I'm sure you're tired," said Mr. Wynkar, with great feeling. "You speak as if you were. Victor, you lazy dog, take the reins, if you have any politeness left."

"I haven't," said Victor, leaning back with composure. "I haven't a vestige left. I used up the last I had about me on that boor with the short pipe, who gave me such a gracious look as he walked off."

"Yes," I exclaimed, "I think you'll hear from him again."

"Not improbable," said Victor, coolly. "I have a knack at getting into sc.r.a.pes that's only exceeded by my knack at getting out of them. Now I think of it, he didn't look like a pleasant sort of fellow to meet in a dark piece of woods like this."

We had just driven into the woods that stretched about half a mile this side of the gate of Rutledge Park, and the faint young moon that had been lighting us since we left the village, had no power to penetrate the dense foliage that met over our heads, and shut out moon and sky. It did not make me any more comfortable to remember that there was a short path from the village across these woods, and that any one on foot could reach this point almost as soon as in a carriage by the road. I did not feel like laughing at Ellerton Wynkar's little gasp of fear, and Victor's gay laugh and easy tone of a.s.surance, far from inspiring me with confidence, made me doubly nervous and apprehensive. I only wished that I dared ask him to be quiet till we were out into the open road again. But he seemed possessed with mischief--he quizzed Ellerton, told droll stories, and laughed till the woods rang again. But through it all, I strained my ear to catch the faintest noise by the roadside; and when the horses, more intent than I, shied violently to one side and dashed forward, with a quivering, desperate pull upon the reins, I was quite prepared for what succeeded. A large stone whirred swiftly through the air, just grazed my cheek, and fell with a crashing sound on the other side of the road.

"Good heavens!" cried Victor, starting forward, "are you hurt?"

"No, no," I exclaimed; "for heaven's sake, be quiet."

"Give me the reins," he cried, s.n.a.t.c.hing them.

"No, no!" I answered, keeping them by a desperate exertion of strength.

"I shall never forgive you if you stop the horses."

"I shall never forgive myself for the danger I have brought you in," he said, in a low tone. "You will never trust yourself to my protection again, I fear," he continued earnestly, as we drove into the park gate.

"Oh, I'm not afraid as long as I hold the ribbons," I answered, trying to laugh, but drawing a freer breath as we cleared the woods and came into the moonlight again.

"You are cruel," he said, in a lower tone still.

"There's the house at last!" exclaimed Ellerton, with a sigh of relief so profound that we both started.

"How are you getting on, behind there?" asked Victor. "I'd forgotten all about you, Ellerton. That was a neat little compliment from our friend in the woods, now wasn't it? But the least said about those little attentions the better, I've always found; you understand. 'Oh no, we never mentions him,' under any circ.u.mstances."

"Of course not," said Ellerton, acquiescently. "I should not speak of it on any account."

"And, Michael, my man," continued Victor, putting his hand in his pocket, "whist's the word about this little adventure, you know."

Michael touched his hat, and, pocketing the coin that Victor tossed him, promised absolute silence on the subject.

The horses, as we came up the avenue, slackened their pace, and gave us time to look around. Sunset, starlight moonlight, had neither of them abdicated the bright June sky, but all combined to light up the picture for us, and make the lake a sheet of silver, and the dark, old house as fair as it could be made.

"A fine old place, indeed," said Victor, with a temporary shade of seriousness on his face. "It must be pleasant to have such an ancestral home as that. These Rutledges are a high family, are they not?"

"One of the very best in the State;" answered Ellerton, feeling that "family" was always a toast to which he was called upon to respond.

"There are very few in the country who can go back so far. The Rutledges have always been very exclusive, and held themselves very high, and so have never lost their position."

"Ha!" said Victor, with a little darkening of the brow. "That's the style, is it? Our host, then, is a proud man, I am to understand--one who values birth, and that sort of thing, and plumes himself upon it, and regards with a proper scorn all who have come into the world under less favorable auspices than himself."

"Exactly," said Ellerton. "I think that's Rutledge exactly. He's what you'd call a regular aristocrat, and proud as Lucifer himself."

"I kiss his hand!" cried Victor, with a dash of bitterness in his tone.

"Commend me to such a man as that! I reverence his largeness of soul, his n.o.bility of nature! I long to show him in what esteem I hold him."

"I think you mistake Mr. Rutledge," I began eagerly; but before I had time to say another word we were at the door, and Mr. Rutledge himself, descending the steps quickly, and speaking with some anxiety, exclaimed:

"We have been very uneasy about you. I have just sent orders to the stable for horses to start to meet you. Has anything happened?"

"The pole required just three times as long to repair as Mr. Smithy said it would," answered Victor, "and we, very foolishly depending upon his word in the matter, were much disappointed in not reaching the house three-quarters of an hour ago. I am sorry to have caused you any uneasiness."

"It is dissipated now," said Mr. Rutledge, courteously. "I only regret that your arrival should have been marked by such a misadventure."

"What would he say if he knew of misadventure number two?" said Victor, _sotto voce_, as he a.s.sisted me to alight. "I feel positively superst.i.tious. No good is coming of this visit, depend upon it!"

As we were half-way up the steps, I found I had forgotten my parasol, and Victor went back to look for it. Mr. Rutledge, seizing the opportunity of his absence, said to me quickly:

"I see you drove those horses; you must promise me you will never do it again."

"Why not?" I asked, haughtily.

"No matter why; you must promise me you will never touch the reins again behind them."

"I am sure I drove them up in style; Michael himself could not have done it better. I don't think I can bind myself never to do it again. You'll have to excuse me from promising."

"I remember; you have a prejudice against promising."

There was something in his tone, and in the short laugh that followed these words, that brought back so much of what I had been trying to forget, and revived so much of what I had half forgiven, that I made no effort to keep back the hasty words that rushed to my lips.

"Can you wonder at it? My experience has been so unfortunate; why, less than a year ago, I made a promise that, I suppose, was as binding as most other promises, and meant about as much; and I have found it a chain at once the lightest and most galling--empty as air, and yet the hatefullest restraint--the veriest mockery, and yet a thing I can't get rid of! That's briefly what I think of promises, and why you must excuse me from making one."

"I will excuse you," he said, looking at me with eyes that never faltered; "I will excuse you, with all my heart, from making or keeping any promise to me."