It was not until Bath had very obviously been left behind that Yvonne de Kernogan—Lady Anthony Dewhurst—realised that she had been trapped.
During the first half-hour of the journey her father had lain back against the cushions of the carriage with eyes closed, his face pale and wan as if with great suffering. Yvonne, her mind a prey to the gravest anxiety, sat beside him, holding his limp cold hand in hers. Once or twice she ventured on a timid question as to his health and he invariably murmured a feeble assurance that he felt well, only very tired and disinclined to talk. Anon she suggested—diffidently, for she did not mean to disturb him—that the driver did not appear to know his way into Bath, he had turned into a side road which she felt sure was not the right one. M. le duc then roused himself for a moment from his lethargy. He leaned forward and gazed out of the window.
"The man is quite right, Yvonne," he said quietly, "he knows his way. He brought me along this road yesterday. He gets into Bath by a slight détour but it is pleasanter driving."
This reply satisfied her. She was a stranger in the land, and knew little or nothing of the environs of Bath. True, last Monday morning after the ceremony of her marriage she had driven out to Combwich, but dawn was only just breaking then, and she had lain for the most part—wearied and happy—in her young husband's arms. She had taken scant note of roads and signposts.
A few minutes later the coach came to a halt and Yvonne, looking through the window, saw a man who was muffled up to the chin and enveloped in a huge travelling cape, mount swiftly up beside the driver.
"Who is that man?" she queried sharply.
"Some friend of the coachman's, no doubt," murmured her father in reply, "to whom he is giving a lift as far as Bath."
The barouche had moved on again.
Yvonne could not have told you why, but at her father's last words she had felt a sudden cold grip at her heart—the first since she started. It was neither fear nor yet suspicion, but a chill seemed to go right through her. She gazed anxiously through the window, and then looked at her father with eyes that challenged and that doubted. But M. le duc would not meet her gaze. He had once more closed his eyes and sat quite still, pale and haggard, like a man who is suffering acutely.