Her mistress smiled at her reassuringly.
"What have we to fear, you foolish girl? For myself, I would like better than anything to remain here until the moon comes over the top of that round hill. But listen! It is just as I told you. There is no necessity for Charles to leave us."
They all turned their heads. From some distance behind on the hard, narrow road, curling like a piece of white tape around the hillside, there came, faintly at first, but more distinctly every moment, the sound of horse's hoofs.
"It is as I told you," Louise said composedly. "Some one approaches—on horseback, too. He will be able to fetch assistance."
The chauffeur walked back a few yards, prepared to give early warning to the approaching horseman. The two women, standing up in the car, watched the spot where the road, hidden for some time in the valley, came into sight.
Louder and louder came the sound of the beating of hoofs. Louise gave a little cry as a man on horseback appeared in sight at the crest of the hill. The narrow strip of road seemed suddenly dwarfed, an unreasonable portion of the horizon blotted out. In the half light there was something almost awesome in the unusual size of the horse and of the man who rode it.
"It is a world of goblins, this, Aline!" her mistress exclaimed softly. "What is it that comes?"
"It is a human being, Dieu merci!" the maid replied, with a matter-of-fact little sigh of content.
Conscious of the obstruction in the road, the rider slackened his speed. His horse, a great, dark-colored animal, pricked up his ears when scarcely a dozen yards away from the car, stopped short, and suddenly bolted out on the open moor. There was the sound of a heavy whip, a loud, masterful voice, and a very brief struggle, during which the horse once plunged and reared so high that Louise, watching, cried out in fear. A few moments later, however, horse and rider, the former quivering and subdued, were beside the car.
"Has anything happened?" the newcomer asked, raising his whip to his hat.