331. Cupid Rides Pillion

It was dark in the coach and the flickering taper in the lantern seemed to accentuate rather than relieve the gloom as the wheels rolled and bumped over the rutted, stony road. The moon, however, was rising up the sky and after a while Panthea thought that she could see only too clearly the face of the man sitting beside her. He had taken off his broad-brimmed hat and was leaning back against the well-cushioned seat as if at his ease, but she was well aware that his eyes were turned con-stantly in her direction. She made herself as small as she could, so that she appeared to crouch in the comer of the seat making believe with a hopeless hopefulness that she was so tiny and insignificant that she might even be overlooked. She even prayed that the darkness might deepen and hide her completely. He was watching her She could see the sharp outline of his hooked, nose turned away from her, and yet she knew that his eyes searched for hers. There was no need for the moonlight or the guttering candle to reveal to her the lines of his face. She knew the features too well—the tight, cruel, yet sensuous mouth; the square jaw which had a look of brutality; the bushy, long-haired eyebrows which mounted gua^ over suspicious, glittering eyes which seemed to miss nothing! Yes, she knew his face as she knew her own—the face which had haunted her dreams and every hourof her waking life for the last two months. She had been aware, Panthea thought, from the very first that she could not escape him. She had seen the look in his eyes when he entered the hall at Staverley and shrank from {it in horror and disgust, but from that first moment it was too late. She had known, though she hardly dared put it into words eve^p herself, that his next visit had been but an excuse to see her pine he had come again and again, always with the, same excuse, always upsetting her father and frightening the servants into hysterics, so that she alone must remain calm in order to combat and defy him. ^And she had guessed that he enjoyed torturing them. She had seen it in the faint smile at the comer of his lips, in the depths of his eyes which watched her as a cat will watch a mouse before it pounces. And then at last he had spoken what was in his mind. Almost involuntarily as her thoughts tortured her Panthea made a convulsive gesture, and instantly the man at her side leant forward. He was for the instant silhouetted against the window and she saw his rounded head, the greying hair lank and straight.