To the south and east and west, this little oasis of civilisation was walled in by the eternal forest. To the north, blue lake and blue sky blended together. On this day in late summer the place was a paradise of solitude. The great lake, which on occasion could raise a storm that might swamp an Atlantic liner, was now placid and on its good behaviour. The only sound was the gentle whisper of the leaves in the forest and the impatient pawing of a horse, which a groom held, saddled, by the southern verandah.
Through the open doorway there presently emerged a young woman, in a tight-fitting riding-habit, so short in the skirt that it looked like a walking dress rather than a costume for an equestrienne. The girl seemed very slight, and not as tall as the average woman. In spite of the frown on her brow, the face was redeemed from lack of amiability by some indescribable spiritual intellectuality which beamed from it. The whole figure gave an impression of gloom. The hair was black; the complexion almost that of an Italian woman. The eyes of velvet midnight could sparkle with dark anger, but at times they melted into a glance of appeal that was strangely pathetic, which partially redeemed the austerity of the other features. The costume was of unrelieved black, but the attention of a stranger invariably returned again and again to the face, puzzled by it. It seemed to stamp its owner as querulous, selfish perhaps, caring little for the feelings of others, yet nevertheless there sometimes fitted across it an expression indicating true nobility of character, that seemed to account for those many deeds of kindness, with which even a critical world credited the young woman.
She spoke with cutting sharpness to her groom, who had not placed the horse to please her. The man did his best, but the animal was restive from its long wait, and with a curt word of impatience at what she called the stupidity of the groom, the girl sprang with great dexterity into her saddle, gathered the reins in her left hand, and flecked the animal a stinging stroke on the flank with her whip. The horse snorted and reared, pawing the air, and again the whip descended. Now he tried to bolt, but she held him firmly, in spite of her apparently slight physique, and at last the frightened horse stood there trembling, but mastered.
“Shall I follow you, madam?” inquired the groom.
“Don’t ask unnecessary questions!” snapped the girl, scowling at him as if she were in half a mind to hit him as well as the horse with the whip. “If I wished you to follow me, I should have told you so.”
The cringing groom raised his forefinger to the peak of his cap and slunk away. The horse would have cantered, feeling the exhilaration of the air and the delight of the day in its supple limbs, but the girl appeared to take a grim pleasure in restraining the ardour of her steed and forcing him to a slow walk. The horsewoman certainly rode well and looked well in the saddle, but her face was marred by an expression of chronic discontent, which perhaps had a right to be there, for she was accounted the richest woman in the world, living what she supposed to be the simple life.
Constance Berrington was one of those unhappy persons whose every wish had been gratified almost before it could be expressed. Slight as she appeared, her health was excellent, and she had never yet come upon a crisis in life which money could not smooth away. It would have done her a world of good to be compelled to earn her living for a year, and meet a section of humanity she had never yet encountered, who cared not a rap whether she lived or died. But at this moment, when her ill-temper caused her to curb the eager horse to a slow walk, she was playing into the hands of the enemy in a manner that would have startled her had she but known.
Parallel with her course, a stooping man dodged from tree to tree. There was something of the stealthiness of the savage about him, and he took all the precautions of a savage to avoid observation—precautions that were unnecessary in this case, for the girl was absorbed in the conquering of her horse, and the horse’s own hoofs in the pine needles made noise enough to render inaudible the footsteps of the pursuer. For more than a mile the conscious hunter and the unconscious hunted kept their course. The ground rose perceptibly all the way, but at last became tolerably level, and then the girl shook out the reins and settled herself for a gallop. But at that instant, the wary pursuer, who day after day during the past month had been baffled by the speed of the horse, sprang out from behind a tree and seized the bridle near the bit. The complexion of the woman became a shade less swarthy with the sudden fright of this assault, and although she did not cry out or scream, her inward panic was in no way lessened by the sight of the countenance turned upon her. It was the face of one in despair, and the fierce, vengeful light of the eyes betokened a mind perilously near to insanity.
“Let go my horse!” she said in a low, tense voice.
The man tightened his grip.