One breathless moment and Cora scrambled to her feet unhurt, but not so the companion of her wild drive.
Silent and pallid, a senseless heap with the blood staining his white shirt bosom and his wounded hand, Ernest Noel lay like one dead in the snow.
“I have killed him!” the girl muttered wildly, but so terrible was her resentment that she felt no remorse for her deed, only a fierce joy that he was out of her way.
“He deserved it all!” she muttered, casting her glance hurriedly around to see if there was any witness to her crime.
But she was all alone with nature—nature in her stormiest mood, the wind shrieking in a rising gale, blowing the snow across the fields, bending and twisting the bare boughs of the trees, while the drifts were piled high against the rough stones of an old lime quarry close to the side of the road.
In that lonely scene the desperate girl stood wild-eyed, breathless, still burning with rage that precluded all remorse.
“If I could only hide him, if only the snowdrifts would cover him from my sight forever!” she exclaimed, and then her glance fell on the old quarry and lighted with intelligence.
“I can throw him down there!” she muttered, and with a strength born of terror, dragged the inert body by the arms, and pushed it down into the pit.
It fell with a hollow thud that made the panting girl, listening above, shudder violently, and fly back to the sleigh.
The black horse, seemingly subdued by its wild race and with the sweat streaming from every pore, despite the biting wind, stood patiently waiting her pleasure as she nervously returned and caught up the reins preparing for the inclement drive home.