The car went on. Jane's heart beat fast, her pulses throbbed painfully. Would he do it, would he find out? It was an awful risk to run.
"Now," she said as calmly and steadily as possible, "to the right."
Carl turned the steering wheel; the car swerved, bumped on the rough grass; for a moment he seemed to lose control of it. He heard Jane leap out; he could not see her.
She had played him a trick; where was he? His brain was on fire. He acted like a madman, wild with rage; he tried to stop the car. In his fumbling haste he failed.
There was a plunge, a great splash.
Jane, bruised and shaken on the ground where she had fallen, listened.
CHAPTER XXX
NEWS FROM HOME
When Tom Thrush returned home alone—Abel declined to accompany him—he found the doors open, the cottage in darkness, the lamp having been blown out, and Jane gone. He called her, searched the cottage, took his lantern and examined the garden. Somebody, a man, had been there. He went out on to the road, traced footsteps along the wall until he came to where the car had stood, then he knew it was Carl Meason who had carried her off and given them the slip.
Lantern in hand he followed the tracks easily seen in the damp dust covering the road. He walked rapidly. When he came to the turning leading to the moat he stopped and wondered what had taken him this way. A feeling of horror swept over him as he thought Meason might have had an object in taking her to the moat. This vanished when he considered he would not know the way in the dark, but how to account for the tire imprints? He followed them; as he neared the moat he listened. Footsteps drawing near, light treading; not a man, perhaps Jane; if so, what had become of Meason?