“Why, Papa, will you not accompany me this afternoon?” cried Diana eagerly. “I should so like it!”
It struck her aunt that Harper awaited the answer to this question rather anxiously. She watched him, puzzled. However, when Mr. Beauleigh had refused she could not see any change in his expression, and concluded that she must have been mistaken.
So with a wave of her hand, Diana rode away, the groom following at a respectful distance. Yet somehow Miss Betty was uneasy. A presentiment of evil seemed to touch her, and when the riders had disappeared round a bend in the road she felt an insane desire to run after them and call her niece back. She gave herself a little shake, saying that she was a fond old woman, overanxious about Diana. Nevertheless, she laid a detaining hand on her brother’s arm as he was about to go indoors.
“Wait, Horace! You—you will ride with Di more frequently, will you not?”
He looked surprised.
“You are uneasy, Betty?”
“Oh—uneasy—! Well, yes—a little. I do not like her to go alone with a groom, and we do not know this man.”
“My dear! I had the very highest references from Sir Hugh Grandison, who, I am sure, would never recommend anyone untrustworthy. Why, you saw the letter yourself!”
“Yes, yes. Doubtless I am very stupid. But you will ride with her after today, will you not?”
“Certainly I will accompany my daughter when I can spare the time,” he replied with dignity, and with that she had to be content.
Diana rode leisurely along the lane, beside great trees and hedges that were a blaze of riotous colour. Autumn had turned the leaves dull gold and flame, mellow brown and deepest red, with flaming orange intermingled, and touches of copper here and there where some beech tree stood. The lane was like a fairy picture, too gorgeous to be real; the trees, meeting overhead, but let the sunlight through in patches, so that the dusty road beneath was mottled with gold.
The hedges retained their greenness, and where there was a gap a vista of fields presented itself. And then they came upon a clump of berries, black and red, growing the other side of the little stream that meandered along the lane in a ditch. Diana drew up and addressed her companion.
“See, Harper—there are berries! We need go no further.” She changed the reins to her right hand and made as if to spring down.
“The place I spoke of is but a short way on, miss,” ventured the man, keeping his seat.
She paused.
“But why will these not suffice?”
“Well, miss, if you like. But those others were a deal finer. It seems a pity not to get some.”
Diana looked doubtfully along the road.
“ ’Tis not far?”
“No, miss; but another quarter of a mile, and then down the track by the wood.”
Still she hesitated.
“I do not want to be late,” she demurred.
“No, miss, of course not. I only thought as how we might come back by way of Chorly Fields.”
“Round by the mill? H’m. …”
“Yes, miss. Then as soon as we get past it there is a clear stretch of turf almost up to the house.”
Her eye brightened.
“A gallop? Very well! But let us hurry on.”
She touched the cob with her heel, and they trotted on briskly out of the leafy canopy along the road with blue sky above and pasture land around. After a little while the wood came in sight, and in a minute they were riding down the track at right angles to the road. Harper was at Diana’s heels, drawing nearer. Half unconsciously she quickened her pace. There was not a soul in sight.
They were coming to a bend in the road, and now Harper was alongside.
Choking a ridiculous feeling of frightened apprehension, Diana drew rein.
“I do not perceive those berries!” she said lightly.
“No, miss,” was the immediate response. “They are just a step into the wood. If you care to dismount here I can show you.”
Nothing could be more respectful than the man’s tone. Diana shook off her nervous qualms and slipped down. Harper, already on the ground, took the cob’s rein and tied both horses to a tree.
Diana gathered her skirts over her arm and picked her way through the brambles to where he had pointed.
The blackberry hedges he held back for her entrance swung back after they had passed, completely shutting out all view of the road. There were no berries.
Diana’s heart was beating very fast, all her suspicions springing to life again, but she showed no sign of fear as she desired him to hold the brambles back again for her to pass out.
“For there are no berries here, as you can see for yourself.”
She swept round and walked calmly towards the bushes.
Then, how she could never quite remember, she was seized from behind, and before she had time to move, a long piece of silk was flung over her head and drawn tight across her mouth, while an arm, as of steel, held and controlled her.
Fighting madly, she managed to get one arm free, and struck out furiously with her slender crop. There was a brief struggle, and it was twisted from her grasp, and her hands tied behind her, despite all her efforts to be free.
Then her captor swung her writhing into his arms, and strode away through the wood without a word.
Diana was passive now, reserving her strength for when it might avail her something, but above the gag her eyes blazed with mingled fright and fury. She noticed that she was being carried not into the wood, but along it, and was not surprised when they emerged on to the road where it had rounded the bend.
With a sick feeling of terror, she saw a coach standing in the road, and guessed, even before she knew, what was her fate. Through a haze she saw a man standing at the door, and then she was thrust
