Amanda, who was breakfasting on raspberries and cream, paused, with her spoon halfway to her mouth, a sudden and brilliant notion taking possession of her mind. “Do you feel unwell in carriages, sir?” she asked.

He nodded. “Always been the same. It’s a curst nuisance, but my coachman is a very careful driver, and knows he must let the horses drop into a walk if the road should be rough. Ah, that makes you think me a sad old fogey, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, no!” said Amanda earnestly. “Because it is exactly so with me!”

“God bless my soul, is it indeed? Well, we are well suited to one another, eh?” His gaze fell on her brimming plate; he said uneasily: “Do you think you should eat raspberries, my dear? I should not dare!”

“Oh, yes, for I assure you I feel delightfully this morning!” she replied, pouring more cream over the mound on her plate. “Besides, I am excessively partial to raspberries and cream.”

Mr. Theale, watching with a fascinated eye, could see that this was true. He hoped very much that Amanda was not misjudging her capacity, but he felt a little anxious, and when, half an hour later, her vivacious prattle became rather forced, he was not in the least surprised. By the time they reached the village of Spaldwick, it had ceased altogether, and she was leaning back against the elegant velvet squabs with her eyes closed. Mr. Theale offered her his vinaigrette, which she took with a faintly uttered word of thanks. He was relieved to see that the colour still bloomed in her cheeks, and ventured to ask her presently if she felt more the thing.

“I feel very ill, but I daresay I shall be better directly,” she replied, in brave but faltering accents. “I expect it was the raspberries: they always make me feel like this!”

“Well, what the devil made you eat them?” demanded Mr. Theale, pardonably annoyed.

“I am so very partial to them!” she explained tearfully. “Pray don’t be vexed with me!”

“No, no!” he made haste to assure her. “There, don’t cry, my pretty!”

“Oh, don’t!” begged Amanda, as he tried to put his arm round her. “I fear I am about to swoon!”

“Don’t be afraid!” said Mr. Theale, patting her hand. “You won’t do that, not while you have such lovely roses in your cheeks! Just put your head on my shoulder, and see if you don’t feel better in a trice!”

“Is my face very pink?” asked Amanda, not availing herself of this invitation.

“Charmingly pink!” he asserted.

“Then I am going to be sick,” said Amanda, ever fertile of invention. “I always have a pink face when I am sick. Oh, dear, I feel quite dreadfully sick!”

Considerably alarmed, Mr. Theale sat bolt upright, and looked at her with misgiving. “Nonsense! You can’t be sick here!” he said bracingly.

“I can be sick anywhere!”replied Amanda, pressing her handkerchief to her lips, and achieving a realistic hiccup.

“Good God! I will stop the carriage!” exclaimed Mr. Theale, groping for the check-cord.

“If only I could he down for a little while, I should be perfectly well again!” murmured the sufferer.

“Yes, but you can’t lie down by the roadside, my dear girl! Wait, I’ll consult with James! Stay perfectly quiet—take another sniff at the smelling-salts!” recommended Mr. Theale, letting down the window, and leaning out to confer with the coachman, who had pulled up his horses, and was craning round enquiringly from the box-seat.

After a short and somewhat agitated colloquy with James, Mr. Theale brought his head and shoulders back into the carriage, and said: “James reminds me that there is some sort of an inn a little way farther along the road, at Bythorne—only a matter of a couple of miles! It ain’t a posting-house, but a decent enough place, he says, where you could rest for a while. Now, if he were to drive us there very slowly—”

“Oh, thank you, I am so much obliged to you!” said Amanda, summoning up barely enough strength to speak audibly. “Only perhaps it would be better if he were to drive us there as fast as he can!”

Mr. Theale had the greatest dislike of being hurtled over even the smoothest road, but the horrid threat contained in these sinister words impelled him to put his head out of the window again, and to order the coachman to put ‘em along.

Astonished, but willing, James obeyed him, and the carriage was soon bowling briskly on its way, the body swaying and lurching on its swan-neck springs in a manner fatal to Mr. Theale’s delicate constitution. He began to feel far from well himself, and would have wrested his vinaigrette from Amanda’s hand had he not feared that to deprive her of its support might precipitate a crisis that could not, he felt, be far off. He could only marvel that she had not long since succumbed. Every time she moaned he gave a nervous start, and rolled an anxious eye at her, but she bore up with great fortitude, even managing to smile, tremulously but gratefully, when he assured her that they only had a very little way to go.

It seemed a very long way to him, but just as he had decided, in desperation, that he could not for another instant endure the sway of the carriage, the pace slackened. A few cottages came into view; the horses dropped to a sober trot; and Mr. Theale said, on a gasp of relief: “Bythorne!”

Amanda greeted Bythorne with a low moan.

The carriage came to a gentle halt in front of a small but neat-looking inn, which stood on the village street, with its yard behind. The coachman shouted: “House, there!” and the landlord and the tapster both came out in a bustle of welcome.

Amanda had to be helped down from the carriage very carefully. The landlord, informed tersely by James that the lady had been taken ill, performed this office for her, uttering words of respectful encouragement, and commanding the tapster to fetch the mistress to her straight. Mr. Theale, much shaken, managed to alight unassisted, but his usually florid countenance wore a pallid hue, and his legs, in their tight yellow pantaloons, tottered a little.

Amanda, supported between the landlord, and his stout helpmate, was led tenderly into the inn; and Mr. Theale, recovering both his colour and his presence of mind, explained that his young relative had been overcome by the heat of the day and the rocking of the carriage. Mrs. Sheet said that she had frequently been taken that way herself, and begged Amanda to come and have a nice lay down in the best bedchamber. Mr. Sheet was much inclined to think that a drop of brandy would put the young lady into prime twig again; but Amanda, bearing up with great courage and nobility, said in a failing voice that she had a revivifying cordial packed in one of her boxes. “Only I cannot remember in which,” she added prudently.

“Let both be fetched immediately!” ordered Mr. Theale. “Do you go upstairs with this good woman, my love, and I warrant you will soon feel quite the thing again!”

Amanda thanked him, and allowed herself to be led away; whereupon Mr. Theale, feeling that he had done all that could be expected of him, retired to the bar-parlour to sample the rejected brandy. Mrs. Sheet came surging in, some twenty minutes later, bearing comfortable tidings. In spite of the unaccountable negligence of the young lady’s abigail, in having omitted to pack the special cordial in either of her bandboxes, she ventured to say that Miss was already on the high road to recovery, and, if left to lie quietly in a darkened room for half an hour or so, would presently be as right as a trivet. She had obliged Miss to drink a remedy of her own, and although Miss had been reluctant to do so, and had needed a good deal of urging, anyone could see that it had already done much to restore her.

Mr. Theale, who was himself sufficiently restored to have lighted one of his cigarillos, had no objection to whiling away half an hour in a snug bar-parlour. He went out to direct James to stable his horses for a short time; and while he was jealously watching James negotiate the difficult turn into the yard behind the inn, the coach which carried his valet and his baggage drove up. Perceiving his master, the valet shouted to the coachman to halt, and at once jumped down, agog with curiosity to know what had made Mr. Theale abandon the principles of a lifetime, and spring his horses on an indifferent road. Briefly explaining the cause, Mr. Theale directed him to proceed on the journey, and, upon arrival at the hunting-box, to see to it that all was put in readiness there for the reception of a female guest. So the coach lumbered on its way, and Mr. Theale, reflecting that the enforced delay would give his housekeeper time to prepare a very decent dinner for him, retired again to the bar-parlour, and called for another noggin of brandy.

Meanwhile, Amanda, left to recover on the smothering softness of Mrs. Sheet’s best feather-bed, had nipped up, scrambled herself into that sprig-muslin gown which Povey had so kindly washed and ironed for her, and which the inexorable Mrs. Sheet had obliged her to put off, and had tied the hat of chip-straw over her curls again. For several hideous minutes, after swallowing Mrs. Sheet’s infallible remedy for a queasy stomach, she had feared that she really was going to be sick, but she had managed to overcome her nausea, and now felt ready again for any adventure. Mrs. Sheet had pointed out the precipitous back-stairs to her, which reached the upper floor almost opposite to the door of the best bedchamber, and had told her that if she needed anything she had only to open her door, and call out, when she would instantly be heard in the kitchen. Amanda, having learnt from her that the kitchen was reached through the door on the right of the narrow lobby at the foot of the stairs, the other door giving only on to the yard, had thanked her, and reiterated her desire to be left quite alone for half an hour.