"_he_ might."

"It isn't as bad as it looks," said the voice of the man at her side. "I'll give you a lead over." And at that the voice in her began laughing. She felt unaccountably comforted. "Why should I mind?" she thought.

Beyond the brook, at the big bullfinch on the far side of the meadow, a hound feathered. "Yoi-doit, then. Yoi-doit," came Will Oakley's voice. The hound gave tongue, owning to the line; Aliette saw Ronnie take his gray short by the head, ram his spurs home, and ride straight at the water. Miracle raced after the gray, catching up with every stride. Side by side, they galloped the fifty yards to the brook, rose at it, glimpsed it deep under them, flew it, landed. Landing, she knew him safely over. Racing on, she heard the thud of his horse-hoofs behind. Her heart thrilled to the horse-hoofs; it seemed, suddenly, as though some string had snapped in her heart. The pack in front was utterly mad: she heard a burst of hound-music from beyond the bullfinch, knew that they were running a breast-high scent, running clean away from her. She gave Miracle his head, shielded her eyes with her crop-arm, crashed through the hedge, heard the gray crash through behind her.

Now she saw the hounds again, a close ripple of black, white, and tan, eight hundred yards away across post-and-railed common land. Miracle went after them, drawing up stride by stride, steeplechasing his fences. But the man on the gray would not be denied. A rail smashed behind her. He was following, following. He mustn't catch up with her--must never catch up with her. The ground rose. Not very far ahead she saw a dark-red dot making for the gorse-clad hills. She heard Will Oakley's "Halloo! Halloo!" as he capped hounds on. They ran nearly mute now, sterns straight, hackles up. The fox vanished from view as they raced up-hill; reappeared again.

But Aliette was no longer aware of the chase. She could barely realize that hounds were running into their fox, that the two pink coats twenty yards ahead of her were whip and huntsman. All her conscious mind was at her left shoulder, listening, listening to the horse-hoofs behind. Could it be that she herself was the quarry of those thudding hoofs, quarry of the man who drove those thudding hoof-beats onward? He mustn't catch up with her! He must never catch up with her! And yet could it be that some instinct in her, some instinct earth-old and primeval, wanted to be caught?

That same instinct had been at work in the man on the fiddle-headed horse, the man who rode with his hands low and his 

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