The carriage contained Mr. Melrose, Mrs. Melrose, their infant daughter
aged sixteen months, and her Italian nurse, Anastasia Doni.

There was still some gray light left, but the little lady who sat
dismally on her husband's right, occasionally peering through the window,
could make nothing of the landscape, because of the driving scuds of rain
which drenched the carriage windows, as though in their mad charges from
the trailing clouds in front, they disputed every inch of the miry way
with the newcomers. From the wet ground itself there seemed to rise a
livid storm-light, reflecting the last gleams of day, and showing the
dreary road winding ahead, dim and snakelike through intermittent trees.

"Edmund!" said the lady suddenly, in a high thin voice, as though the
words burst from her--"If the water by that mill they talked about is
really over the road, I shall get out at once!"

"What?--into it?" The gentleman beside her laughed. "I don't remember, my
dear, that swimming is one of your accomplishments. Do you propose to
hang the baby round your neck?"

"Of course I should take her too! I won't run any risks at all with her!
It would be simply wicked to take such a small child into danger." But
there was a fretful desperation in the tone, as of one long accustomed to
protest in vain.

Mr. Melrose laughed once more--carelessly, as though it were not worth
while to dispute the matter; and the carriage went on--battling, as it
seemed, with the storm.

"I never saw such an _awful_ place in my life!" said the wife's voice