The linnets in the trees must have heard the raised voices; the humans were quarrelling in good earnest then; no doubt, seeing the young man seize the young woman, then flew away thinking tragedy had arrived on the old Roman road with all her pomp and circumstance.
For a moment the astonished girl had a vision of being hauled over the bridge to drown in the six-inch river, and then she lost consciousness to everything but the embrace of the man who had seized her in his arms. Lips, eyes, and mouth covered with burning kisses, she leaned against the parapet, gasping for breath and—alone.
Mr. Dashwood had gone; vaulting over the low fence of the wood, he had vanished amid the trees. No criminal ever escaped quicker after the commission of his crime.
"Mad! Oh, he's mad!" she gasped, half laughing, gasping, and not far from tears. It was not the outburst of fervent passion that astonished or shocked her—it was the running away.
The deep throb of a motor-car topping the hill brought her to her senses, and she had composed herself, and was leaning on the parapet again, looking at the river, as it whizzed by.
Then she took her way back to The Martens, walking slowly and thinking the situation over as she walked.
CHAPTER XVIII
Mr. Dashwood in his delirium had penetrated deep into the wood beyond sight of road or house before he recovered his normal senses.