The next moment they were rushing down the lane into a gulf of blackness, and she knew that the prison-walls would menace her no more.
PART III
CHAPTER I
THE VICTIM
Of that wild rush through the night Frances never recalled any very clear detail afterwards. She only knew a strange dazzle of moonlight that filled the world, making all things seem unreal, and once she fancied she caught a glimpse of the Stones grimly outlined upon a distant hill.
Her companion never spoke to her, his whole attention apparently being occupied in forcing the utmost speed from his car, despite the extreme unevenness of the moorland road they travelled. In the end they ran into a little town and straight up the one broad street in an inn, Frances always remembered the sign-board of that inn, for it was the first thing that made a definite impression upon her after her flight. The inn was called The Man in the Moon, and the sign-board portrayed the same, being an enormous yellow face with the most quizzing expression possible to imagine—a face that would have provoked a smile from the least humorous. Somehow that face served to jolt Frances back to the ordinary and the commonplace. It enabled her to put the overwhelming sense of tragedy away from her and assume something of her old brisk and business-like attitude.
“Is this where you are staying?” she said.
“Yes,” said Rotherby. “It’s comfortable enough in a homely way. Will you get out?”
She turned in the seat and faced him. By the light of the moon he looked ghastly pale, but he managed to call up a smile.
“If there is another inn in the place I’ll go to it,” said Frances.
“I’m afraid there isn’t,” said Rotherby. “And you probably wouldn’t get in if there were. But you needn’t be anxious on that account. I’ll call you my sister if you like.”