Soon she was not at all sure that she was not off the road; that she was not roaming, blindly, over the open country. It seemed impossible that any road could be so uneven. She kept stumbling over unseen obstacles. Once she caught herself descending what seemed to be the steep sides of some sort of pit. With a sense of shock she drew back in time. She listened; she seemed to hear the sound of running waters. Could she be standing on the bank of some stream or river, into which, in another second, she might have descended? Anxious, even a little alarmed, turning right about face, she moved forward in what she supposed was the opposite direction. She seemed to be stumbling over a succession of hillocks. This could not be the road; she must have gone entirely astray. If she did not take care she would be running into some serious danger.
All at once her foot caught in some trailing root or plant; she went headforemost to the ground. Fortunately, she came down lightly enough. The fall was of little consequence, but when she tried to regain her perpendicular she learned, to her dismay, that her ankle refused to support her. Willy-nilly, she had to remain squatted where she had fallen.
"I seem to be in for a real good thing," she groaned. "Am I to stay here all night? I shall be frozen to the bone before the morning, to say nothing of waiting like a rat in a trap for Mrs. Macconichie to catch me."
She had to wait there for probably more than an hour, not exactly on the same spot. She managed, at intervals, to half hobble, half crawl across, perhaps another couple of hundred yards of ground. But the labour was thrown away. At that rate she would not have covered a mile before daybreak. Yielding to necessity, still clutching her bag, crouching on the turf, she watched for the light to come. She felt no need for sleep; she was only consumed by a great impatience, in that all things seemed to be against her.
The skies were clouded like her fate. Nowhere was there a glimmer of a star. A cool breeze was coming from what she judged to be the sea. It made itself more and more felt as the time stole on. By degrees it began to bring a mist with it. As she had foreseen, she became chilled to the marrow of her bones.
"If this goes on I shall freeze to death."
The idea recurred to her like a sort of formula. She kept telling herself again and again that that night would be the end of her.
When her vitality seemed at its lowest point the stillness of the night was broken by a sound-the sound of wheels.
CHAPTER II
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
She raised her head to listen, thinking that her senses must be playing her a trick. No; it certainly was the sound of wheels, coming nearer and nearer. Some one was driving fast through the darkness, so fast that in what seemed to her to be less than a minute the driver was close upon her. Apparently nearly in front of her, although she could not see it, was a road along which the vehicle was approaching. It carried no lights; nothing broke the shadows; but, if her ears could be trusted, within a stone's-throw of where she was some wheeled conveyance was hurrying past. She stood upon her one sound foot and shouted: -
"Hallo! – hallo-o! – hallo-o-o!" again and again.
Her first shouts went unheeded. Possessed by a wild fear that she might remain unnoticed, raising her voice to a desperate yell, she started to scream herself hoarse.
This time her tones travelled. Suddenly the vehicle ceased to move. An answering shout came back to her: -
"Who's there? What's the matter with you?"
The accent was broad Scotch. Had it been the purest Cockney it could not have seemed more welcome. She replied to the inquiry: -
"I've sprained my ankle so that I can hardly move".
This time in the other voice there was an unmistakable suggestion of surprise.
"Is it a woman?"
"Yes."
Her tone was fainter.
"And what might you be doing here at this hour of the morning?"
"I'm going to Carnoustie."
"Carnoustie! You're going to Carnoustie! – along this road? You're joking! Can you get as far as this, so that I can have a look at you?"
"I'll try."
She did try. It was a distance of barely a hundred yards, but traversing it was a work of time. When the space was covered it was only by clutching at the wheel of the trap that she saved herself from subsiding in a heap upon the ground. In an instant the driver was off his seat, and with his arm about her.
"Is it so bad as that?"
"It is pretty bad," she stammered.
"For the Lord's sake, don't faint! We've no time to waste upon such trifles."
"I'm not going to faint." At any rate the tone was faint enough. Suddenly she seemed to pull herself together, as if stirred by a spirit of resentment. "I never have fainted in my life-I'm not going to begin to do it now."
He laughed-that is, the little husky sound he made might have been intended for a laugh.
"If you'll keep quite still I'll lift you up into the trap somehow, though, by the feel of you, you're as big as I am, and, maybe, heavier. The mare won't move. She's one of the few female things I ever met that wasn't troubled with the fidgets."
As he put it, "somehow" he did get her up into the trap, then climbed on to the seat beside her. Presently they were bowling along together. For some seconds neither spoke. She was endeavouring to accustom herself to her new position. He, possibly-as his questions immediately showed-was wondering who it was that he had chanced upon.
"You're English?"
"I am."
"Staying in these parts?"
"I'm on a walking tour."
"A walking tour at one o'clock in the morning!"
"It wasn't one o'clock when I started. I've been where you found me for hours and hours."
"Where were you making for?"
"I've told you, I was going to Carnoustie."
"Going from Carnoustie, you mean. You'll never be finding it in this part of the country."
"I daresay. Since it became dark I've been hobbling round about just anywhere. I don't know where I am; I've lost myself completely." He was silent, as if he found something in her words which made him think. Then she took up the rôle of questioner: "Where are you going?"
"To a man that's dying."
"Are you a doctor?"
"It's my trade."
"Then you'll be able to look at my ankle. I hope it's nothing serious, but it seems to be getting worse instead of better."
"I'll look at your ankle, never fear. I'll find you an easier patient than the one I'm bound for."
Little more was said on either side. The doctor seemed to be by nature a taciturn man, or perhaps he was too preoccupied for speech. Isabel was feeling too miserable to talk. She was cold and wet; her ankle was occasioning her no little pain. She could hardly have been less inclined for conversation, and she, also, had at times a gift of silence. During the twenty or thirty minutes the drive continued probably not half-a-dozen words were exchanged.
At last the doctor brought his mare to a standstill.
"I suppose you couldn't get down and open a gate? There's one right in front of us. I can see it's closed."
His eyes must have had the cat's quality of being able to penetrate the darkness; she could see nothing.
"I might be able to get down-if I had