"Then call to the commandant, and tell him we'll meet them there!"
The Marquis obeyed, and, without awaiting answer, or demur from the officer in charge of the guard, the girl flicked her horse and sent him over a low bush into the narrow way.
Fairly in the path, she rode fast, and pressing hard behind, my lord soon found reason for doubt as to the advisibility of that route, and a suspicion of regret at his own hasty assent to the departure from the main thoroughfare. As their surroundings grew wilder and the slender green figure flitted more and more recklessly before him, he even ventured to voice his misgivings—advise greater care. A shake of the fair head was all he received for answer and, regardless of the increasing roughness of the way, she continued to sweep on, now uphill, then down, avoiding by a quick turn one obstacle here, leaping another there! From a black ambush, a branch like the arm of a Titan reached out to seize, but adroitly she swayed from its grasp and only the twigs and leaves touched lightly the bent figure.
My lord, however, they struck sharply, and at the sudden smart and a quick realization of falling behind, frowningly he drove his horse harder. The tête-à-tête he had naturally expected from her request to pursue the lonelier way promised now not to materialize; the idea that she was fleeing, he pursuing, possessed him. The forest, a tangle of shrubs and strange creepers, was the scene of the idyl; she, a sprite of the greenwood, danced illusively through the maze. At length when my lord had begun to grow weary of vainly endeavoring to overtake her, fate favored his efforts; brought to a standstill, at the edge of a torrent, the object of his pursuit.
"Are you mad, Elise?" A shadow on his brow, the Marquis rode down.
She made no reply; regarded only the water.
"I hope it is not in your mind to attempt to cross," he went on, a shade of petulance in his accents.
She urged her horse forward; it stopped.
"Elise! I beg of you! It is dangerous; better go back, and around!"
But the girl set her red lips, raised her whip, and brought it down hard. The animal sprang into the foam; breasting the current, it slipped once or twice, recovered, and, after an effort, managed to reach the bank opposite. My lord—less blithely than he had first embarked on the adventure—followed; the cold waters surged around, and he almost expected to be swept away. At length, however, chilled by the icy touch of the torrent and somewhat more out of humor, he found himself on the other side. Near the top of the bank, where the Governor's daughter had now the grace to await him, he rejoined her, disapproval on his face, reproach in his eyes. Yet still did the girl remain unconscious of her lover's wounded sensibilities; her own eyes, like stars beneath the flurry of hair, were turned, not to the young man, but away, toward a gaunt-looking ruin that had suddenly uplifted itself, as if by magic, through a rift in the forest. But a few hundred yards distant, the black crumbling walls bristled with rough, jagged edges—big, broken teeth that snarled at the rim of the ever-young wood. The very brightness of the day seemed only to emphasize the ominous aspect of the place; to reveal more plainly the solitary character of its wildness.