Here on the hills the sky hung low overhead, and the wind sweeping chill and drear across the upland was full of a melancholy soughing.  The world, it seemed to one of them, was uncreate, gone, and non-existent; only this remained—­the shadowy downs stretching on every side to infinity, and three shadowy riders plodding across them; all shadowy, all unreal until a bell-wether got up under the horses’ heads, and with a confused rush and scurry of feet a hundred Southdowns scampered into the grey unknown.

Mr. Fishwick found it terrible, rugged, wild, a night foray.  His heart began to sink again.  He was sore too, sweating, and fit to drop from his saddle with the unwonted exertion.

And what of Sir George, hurled suddenly out of his age and world—­the age des philosophes, and the smooth world of White’s and Lord March—­into this quagmire of feeling, this night of struggle upon the Wiltshire downs?  A few hours earlier he had ridden the same road, and the prize he now stood in danger of losing had seemed—­God forgive him!—­of doubtful value.  Now, as he thought of her, his heart melted in a fire of love and pity:  of love that conjured up a thousand pictures of her eyes, her lips, her smile, her shape—­all presently dashed by night and reality; of pity that swelled his breast to bursting, set his eyes burning and his brain throbbing—­a pity near akin to rage.

Even so, he would not allow himself to dwell on the worst.  He had formed his opinion of the abduction; if it proved correct he believed that he should be in time to save her from that.  But from the misery of suspense, of fear, of humiliation, from the touch of rough hands and the shame of coarse eyes, from these things—­and alone they kindled his blood into flame—­he was powerless to save her!

Lady Dunborough could no longer have accused him of airs and graces.  Breeding, habit, the custom of the gaming-table, the pride of caste availed to mask his passions under a veil of reserve, but were powerless to quell them.  What was more remarkable, so set was he on the one object of recovering his mistress and putting an end to the state of terror in which he pictured her—­ignorant what her fate would be, and dreading the worst—­he gave hardly a thought to the astounding discovery which the lawyer had made to him.  He asked him no questions, turned to him for no explanations.  Those might come later; for the moment he thought not of his cousin, but of his mistress.  The smiles that had brightened the dull passages of the inn, the figure that had glorified the quiet streets, the eyes that had now invited and now repelled him, these were become so many sharp thorns in his heart, so many goads urging him onward.

It was nine when they saw the lights of Calne below them, and trotting and stumbling down the hill, clattered eagerly into the town.  A moment’s delay in front of the inn, where their questions speedily gathered a crowd, and they had news of the chaise:  it had passed through the town two hours before without changing horses.  The canvas blinds were down or there were shutters; which, the ostler who gave them the information, could not say.  But the fact that the carriage was closed had struck him, and together with the omission to take fresh horses, had awakened his suspicions.