“Give me the reins,” she said simply.

He placed them in the two firm, well-shaped hands that reached from the depths of the vehicle, and was satisfied.  Yet he lingered.

“It’s rough work for a lone woman,” he said, almost curtly.  “I can’t go with you, but, speak frankly, is there any man you know whom you can trust well enough to take?  It’s not too late yet; think a moment!”

He paused over the buttoning of the leather apron of the vehicle.

“No, there is none,” answered the voice from the interior; “and it’s better so.  Is all ready?”

“One moment more.”  He had recovered his half-bantering manner.  “You have a friend and countryman already with you, do you know?  Your horse is Blue Grass.  Good night.”

With these words ringing in her ears she began her journey.  The horse, as if eager to maintain the reputation which his native district had given his race, as well as the race of the pretty woman behind him, leaped impatiently forward.  But pulled together by the fine and firm fingers that seemed to guide rather than check his exuberance, he presently struck into the long, swinging pace of his kind, and kept it throughout without “break” or acceleration.  Over the paved streets the light buggy rattled, and the slender shafts danced around his smooth barrel, but when they touched the level high-road, horse and vehicle slipped forward through the night, a swift and noiseless phantom.  Mrs. Tucker could see his graceful back dimly rising and falling before her with tireless rhythm, and could feel the intelligent pressure of his mouth until it seemed the responsive grasp of a powerful but kindly hand.  The faint glow of conquest came to her cold cheek; the slight stirrings of pride moved her preoccupied heart.  A soft light filled her hazel eyes.  A desolate woman, bereft of husband and home, and flying through storm and night, she knew not where, she still leaned forward towards her horse.  “Was he Blue Grass, then, dear old boy?” she gently cooed at him in the darkness.  He evidently was, and responded by blowing her an ostentatious equine kiss.  “And he would be good to his own forsaken Belle,” she murmured caressingly, “and wouldn’t let any one harm her?” But here, overcome by the lazy witchery of her voice, he shook his head so violently that Mrs. Tucker, after the fashion of her sex, had the double satisfaction of demurely restraining the passion she had evoked.

To avoid the more traveled thoroughfare, while the evening was still early, it had been arranged that she should at first take a less direct but less frequented road.  This was a famous pleasure-drive from San Francisco, a graveled and sanded stretch of eight miles to the sea and an ultimate “cocktail,” in a “stately pleasure-dome decreed” among the surf and rocks of the Pacific shore.  It was deserted now, and left to the unobstructed sweep of the wind and rain.  Mrs. Tucker would not have