She mailed the letter the next morning, passing the great Jarvis mansion on her way to the post-office with averted looks. On the sixteenth morning thereafter she received back her letter written to David Whitcomb, with the words printed across the envelope, “Not called for.” She scarcely knew how much she had been expecting from David till her own unopened letter reached her with the effect of a door hard shut in the face of entreaty.
It was on that same day, as she walked slowly toward home, leaving her fruitless letter in a trail of tiny white fragments behind her, that the high-stepping bay horse and the red-wheeled buggy again passed her. She looked up involuntarily, her face white and sad, to receive a cold stare and curt nod from the man on the high seat. His whip-lash curled cruelly around the slender flank of his horse as he passed, and the sensitive creature sprang forward with a lunge and a quiver, only to receive a second and third stinging cut from the lash.
Barbara straightened herself as she watched the light vehicle disappear around a turn in the road.
She was thinking with a vague terror that so he would have tortured and driven her, cruelly, with no hope of escape. She was not prepared to see him return almost immediately at the same furious speed, and still less for his words as he pulled up his foaming horse.
“Get in,” he ordered her roughly. “I must speak to you.”
She looked up at him, her gray eyes sparkling defiance from under their long curling lashes.
“No,” she said loudly, “I will not.”
“Will not?” he repeated. “But I say you shall listen to me.”
She walked on quietly. He stared after her with a muttered oath, as if half-minded to go on. Then he leaped down, jerked his horse roughly to the fence-rail, tied him fast, and strode after the slim figure in the shabby black gown.
He overtook her in a few long strides. She turned to face him in the middle of the muddy road.