Perhaps it was just this extra little warning that proved too much for Nan's overcharged, headstrong spirit—or perhaps she did not hear in the midst of the noise of hoofs and wheels about them.
They were spinning noiselessly along the outer edge of the driveway leading from the Park entrance to the cycle path, when suddenly Nan gave a quick run forward and then made a swift dart for the other side, weaving perilously in and out among the horses and moving vehicles, dexterously dodging, veering, and turning until Miss Blake's heart throbbed thickly from dread and her pulses beat heavily in her temples.
"I must overtake her," she cried to her companion. "She will be killed! I must save her!"
Even as she spoke her breath caught in a short gasp, and she turned suddenly rigid and ashen white.
Coming up the road at full speed was a horse, whose driver, sitting close over its haunches in his narrow sulky, was racing his animal against one similarly driven and urging it on to its utmost pace for winning honor.
At his approach a clear path was made for him by the turning right and left of the throng—by all save Nan.
She heard a man's voice shout hoarsely to her. The oncoming horse had the speed of a racer.
A spirit of mad defiance possessed her. She steered straight as an arrow before her. Then, like a flash, she veered, dodging from under the horse's very nose. She had accomplished her feat very cleverly.
But alas, for Nan!
Even as she sped on, full of the exquisite thrill of exultation in her own prowess she heard behind her the sound of a dull, fear-thickened cry. Then a sudden confusion of voices and the cessation of rolling wheels. She stopped and turned.