He little guessed how close upon him were the critical moments of life, or how much of emotion and difficulty and strenuous decision were to be crowded into the next few days. A whirlpool of events was drawing him to its raging centre. The death and the burial of Colendorp, Sagan's resentment and his ruthless scheming were all eddies of circumstance circling inward and carrying him with them to a definite issue.
As he rode on the weather grew rapidly worse, and it soon became impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. The night was settling down thick with falling snow, so that Rallywood could only pull up and listen when a faint noise, that might have been a woman's scream, came to him through the storm. He shouted in return but there was no answer. Then out of the gray curtain a sleigh with two maddened horses dashed across his path and was as suddenly lost to sight. Rallywood had only time to see a woman clinging to the driver's empty seat and clutching desperately at the dangling reins.
They passed like a vision, noiseless, swift, and dim, and although Rallywood followed quickly, he could not find them. The gloom and the snow had obliterated all trace of the sleigh, and at last Rallywood himself, well as he knew the country, became bewildered; but luckily the horse he rode was a charger he had had with him on the Frontier. He left it to choose its own direction, yet it was long before a blur of light which he knew to be the open doorway of the block-house grew out on the shifting darkness.
Within, the men of the patrol were standing in a group talking eagerly. Flinging himself from his horse, Rallywood entered the house just as a young cavalry officer came out from the inner room, and, recognising Rallywood, advanced hurriedly to meet him.
'I say, who do you think we have in there?' he said excitedly.
'Tell me afterwards,' interrupted Rallywood; 'I met a runaway sleigh——'
'They were the horses from the Castle,' interrupted the young man with a nervous laugh. 'Mademoiselle Selpdorf managed to get hold of the reins after a bit, otherwise——' he snapped his fingers significantly.
'Then she—the lady is safe?'
'Two of them, my dear friend! One is the handsomest girl in Maäsau, and the other is Madame de Sagan herself! And, by Jove! she's an infernally pretty woman too. We're in luck, Rallywood! Have you come to look for them?'
Rallywood hesitated before he replied.