“And then?”
“We’ll see.”
They glided on—the excellent cob doing its mediocre best, the four black figures gaining, gaining, gaining—showing more and ever more clearly the lines of horses and armed men. It was a race that could have but one end. Soon the pursuers were but three hundred yards behind; and still they crept closer, closer. Drexel thought these horsemen meant only arrest—which would be disaster enough; he never guessed that death was riding after him, and that in his pocket were papers that would justify his killing.
Two hundred yards ... one hundred seventy-five.
In five more minutes it would all be over; the countess’s fifty thousand rubles would be earned. She stole a glance at the face of the man she had led to his end in this white waste. In the moonlight it showed clean-cut, strong.
“There is no escape?” she whispered—and her voice sounded strange in her ears.
His head shook.
One hundred fifty yards ... one hundred twenty-five.
“Countess,” said Drexel, with intense self-reproach, “I cannot tell you how I blame myself for letting you come!”
“Had I not come, I would have been in trouble just the same,” she said.