"Is there any inn or cottage near, where I can wait while you take horse to the post-house and fetch me another chaise?" inquired Prue. The man scratched his head doubtfully and looked at Sir Geoffrey as if for instructions.
"Well, fellow, can not you answer the lady? You surely know what houses of entertainment there are on the road to Tunbridge," said Sir Geoffrey.
"There's a pike a mile or so ahead," said the man, "but 'tis no place for a lady to sit down in—a bit of a wooden cabin, and the pike-keeper's a rough blade."
Prue's dismay was unutterable. A mile to walk along a rugged country road in the dusk, and an indefinite period of waiting in the hut of a turnpike-keeper! She was silent for sheer lack of words to do justice to the situation.
"There is an alternative that will relieve you of all embarrassment," said Sir Geoffrey, after a sufficiently long pause to allow her to realize the horror of her dilemma. "My coach is not many yards away, and if you will not honor me by accepting my escort to Tunbridge, permit me, at least, to carry you to the nearest post-house, where no doubt you can obtain a conveyance for the rest of the journey."
Prue looked down at her little feet in their dainty, high-heeled slippers, and wondered how far they would support her along that rough, uneven road. She rose from the grassy bank where Sir Geoffrey had deposited her and a little cry escaped her. Though uninjured in the breakdown, she was shaken and bruised, and would have fallen had not Sir Geoffrey caught her in his arms, from which she extricated herself with great promptness. Drawing back a pace or two, she raised her lovely eyes searchingly to his, and though, in their clear depths he could read a hundred swift suspicions, he met their scrutiny without flinching.
"Sir Geoffrey," she said, after a brief pause, "I thank you for your offer, and accept your escort as far as the post-house, on condition that if we should pass any decent cottage, you will permit me to seek its shelter until a chaise can be sent to me."
"Your lack of confidence wounds and astonishes me, Lady Prudence," he replied, with bitterness. "After my long devotion and the vows that have been exchanged between us, it is strange that you should impose restrictions upon me that would sound injurious to a stranger. But I submit—as I have always done—to your lightest caprice."
"This is no caprice," she returned, with cold reserve; "my circumstances are peculiar and I am bound to beware of appearances."
He bowed low and taking her hand without further resistance, led her to his chariot, upon which the men were already loading her valises. Her jewel-box and the other contents of the chaise having been safely bestowed, Sir Geoffrey took his seat beside her, his valet returned to the rumble and they drove off, leaving the postboys to patch up the damaged vehicle and convey it, as best they might, to the nearest inn.