"Let me see it," said Lady Henrietta. "Yes, it sounds urgent. We'd better send somebody to fetch Barnaby. He will have to take you. You must catch the afternoon train."
"Yes, I must catch the afternoon train," repeated Susan. That was decided. Had not Barnaby mapped it out? She wondered dully how he had managed to convey private instructions for that impeccable message; but all the while she was thinking, thinking,—and suddenly she was conquered by her wild, unreasoning fear for him.
"I'll go and find him," she said.
Lady Henrietta demurred, curious, desiring to cross-examine; but the girl's face smote her, and she forbore to hold her back.
It was not far down the fields, and she went like a driven leaf, possessed by a fear that would not be stilled by reason. She had gone down there sometimes to watch them schooling hunters, and she had ridden the jumps herself, that day when Barnaby showed her how they trained steeplechasers, with real wide hedges and a movable leaping bar. He had tried to prevent her risking the double, bristling with difficulty, and she had defied him, larking over it, and then galloping back to him to say she was sorry.
She counted the fences mechanically as they came up one by one, visible against the winter sky; lines of artificial ramparts, defended by a guard rail, made up with furze;—and the lapping rim of that actual water jump. The strange thing was that as she came nearer and nearer, instead of diminishing, her premonition grew. She talked to herself to keep down her panic.
Why were so few men killed steeplechasing? Because it was dangerous, Barnaby had said. It was the rabbit holes and the mole-hills and the grips that broke your neck unawares.... That was the gate he had shut between them, he sitting on his horse on the far side laughing, while she practised hooking the latch and pushing it back with the handle of her whip. He had shown her first the nail studded in the horn of the handle to keep it from slipping;—and then he had clapped the gate shut, declaring that till she opened it fairly, without his help, she should never pass. And she had ridden through triumphantly at last. It was the only thing he had had to teach her. How quaint they were, these heavy wooden latches.... She let the gate swing and ran.
Rackham was on Black Rose, and Barnaby on a chestnut. They were walking their horses when she caught sight of them, and Barnaby was letting his look over a fence, flicking his whip at the ridge of furze with its withering yellow blossom. They were not talking loud, but she thought his voice sounded angry. The chestnut was restive.
"Keep still, you brute!" he said.
Something was wrong between the two men. Some old antagonism had flared up, rousing them to a hot discussion. The chestnut lifted his forefeet off the ground, and Barnaby shook his bridle carelessly, warning him again to be quiet. Then all at once up he went, seizing the unguarded moment....