“So you see,” he was going on, “it will be as well for you to do as I tell you. Such behaviour will be more sensible and will mean less trouble for all concerned, including yourself—I said, including your dear self, my dear young lady.”

Violet thought that he was more detestable when he tried to be pleasant than when he was in his determinedly commanding moods; but she made no objections, and suffered herself to be led from the room down the stairs and out of the front door of the house. Here she found the car waiting, and she was bundled into it. Rapidly the man drove off. At the end of what was apparently a private road he alighted, opened a farm gate which straddled the entrance to the main road, and then returned to the car. He drove off again.

As they went along the road Violet found herself glancing around her, looking to try to get her bearings, so to speak, in this strange country where she had been a prisoner for some time. She could not imagine how long she had been here, for she might have slept for an hour or a day; nor did she know how long she had been unconscious in the house prior to her first awakening.

She saw a stretch of broad moorland, dotted here and there with grey outcrops of granite, and with dirty-looking sheep grazing here and there on the rugged slopes of cruel hills. On one occasion her captor swerved to avoid one of these sheep, muttered a curse, and swerved back on to the road once more, having gone within inches of a drop which must have been several hundred feet. Violet drew a deep breath of relief when she saw the ribbon of road winding its brown length ahead of them again. Her captor merely chuckled as he glanced at her white face.

“Narrow shave, eh?” he said. “Trust me. I’m a good driver, I am. Never had a smash yet, nor a serious breakdown that I couldn’t remedy. You’re in safe hands when you’re in a car with me, my dear.”

Almost as if to disprove his words, the car slowed down, the engine uttering uncouth sounds, and then stopped abruptly in the middle of the road.

“Hell!” muttered the man, pressing the self-starter energetically. It emitted loud buzzes, but the car still remained quite stationary.

“Looks as if this is the occasion where your ability falls down flat, Mr. Man,” announced Violet with a cheeky grin, her confidence returning.

“Not a bit of it,” he replied. “I’ll soon put this right.” He rose from his seat, and, carefully locking the doors of the car on the outside and pocketing the keys, made his way to the front, where he threw open the bonnet and gazed at the engine for a few minutes.