Quickly resuming her gallop, and yielding to the exhilaration of the air and the pleasure of movement, she urged her mare to a pace which would have been deemed reckless by all save the most skilled and daring riders, unaware of the unpleasant fact that she was being closely followed by Oliver Leach. He rode about twenty paces behind her, every now and then gaining on her, and anon pulling back his horse in an apparent desire not to outstrip her. The rest of the hunting party were well ahead, and they had the road to themselves, with the exception of a fat man on a bicycle, who was careering along in front of them, looking something like a ton on wheels. Maryllia soon flew past this moving rotundity, and even if she had had time to look at it, she would not have known that it was the Reverend Putwood Leveson, as she had never seen that gentleman. Catching a glimpse of the hounds, now racing round the edge of a sloping hill, she galloped faster and faster,--while Oliver Leach, with an odd set expression in his face and eyes, and his hat well pulled down on his brows, followed her at an almost equally flying speed.
A ploughed field lay between them, and the smooth dark slope of land edged with broken furze, where the pack could be plainly seen racing for blood. A moderately low, straggling hedge intervened. Such an obstacle was a mere trifle for 'Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt' to clear, and Maryllia put her to it with her usual ease and buoyancy. But now up came Oliver Leach on his ill-formed but powerful beast;--and just as the spirited mare, with her lightly poised rider on her back, leaped the hedge, he set his own animal at precisely the same place in deliberate defiance of all hunting rules, and springing at her like a treacherous enemy from behind, closed on her haunches, and pounded straight over her! Maryllia reeled in her saddle,--for one half second, her blue eyes wide with terror, turned themselves full upon her pursuer--she raised her hand appealingly--warningly--in vain! With a crash of breaking brushwood the mare went down under the plunging hoofs that came thudding so heavily upon her,--there was a quick shriek--a blur of violet and gold hurled to the ground--and then,--then Leach galloped on--alone! He dared not look back! His nerves throbbed--his heart beat high,-- and his evil soul rejoiced in its wickedness as only the soul of a devil can.
"Verdict--accidental death!" he muttered, with a fierce laugh--"No doubt it will be thought singular that the daughter should have met the same end as her father! And nothing more will be said. But suppose she is not killed, since every cat has nine lives? No matter, she will be disfigured for life! That will suit me just as well!"