“Sigrid and Swanhild have been away with Mme. Lechertier, have they not?” asked Cecil, after a silence.
“Yes, they went to Hastings for a fortnight. We shut up the rooms, and I went down to Herr Sivertsen, who was staying near Warlingham, a charming little place in the Surrey hills.”
“Sigrid told me you were with him, but I fancied she meant in London.”
“No; once a year he tears himself from his dingy den in Museum Street, and goes down to this place. We were out of doors most of the day, and in the evening worked for four or five hours at a translation of Darwin which he is very anxious to get finished. Hullo! what is wrong?”
He might well ask, for the horse was kicking and plunging violently. Shouts and oaths echoed through the murky darkness. Then they could just make out the outline of another horse at right angles with their own. He was almost upon them, struggling frantically, and the shaft of the cab belonging to him would have struck Cecil violently in the face had not Frithiof seized it and wrenched it away with all his force. Then, suddenly, the horse was dragged backward, their hansom shivered, reeled, and finally fell on its side.
Cecil’s heart beat fast, she turned deadly white, just felt in the horrible moment of falling a sense of relief when Frithiof threw his arm around her and held her fast; then for an interval realized nothing at all, so stunning was the violence with which they came to the ground. Apparently both the cabs had gone over and were lying in an extraordinary entanglement, while both horses seemed to be still on their feet, to judge by the sounds of kicking and plunging. The danger was doubled by the blinding fog, which made it impossible to realize where one might expect hoofs.
“Are you hurt?” asked Frithiof anxiously.
“No,” replied Cecil, gasping for breath. “Only shaken. How are we to get out?”
He lifted her away from him, and managed with some difficulty to scramble up. Then, before she had time to think of the peril, he had taken her in his arms, and, rashly perhaps, but very dexterously, carried her out of danger. Had she not trusted him so entirely it would have been a dreadful minute to her; and even as it was she turned sick and giddy as she was lifted up, and heard hoofs in perilous proximity, and felt Frithiof cautiously stepping out into that darkness that might be felt, and swaying a little beneath her weight.
“Wont you put me down?—I am too heavy for you,” she said. But, even as she spoke, she felt him shake with laughter at the idea.