Suddenly there was a step-change. Effie felt it immediately as Sibyl’s horse pulled away – but only for a few seconds. Moments later, the gap was narrowing again as Norma too switched up to a gallop. Effie gasped as her eyes began to stream. The estate blurred in her peripheral vision and she felt the wind buffeting against her ears as her hair streamed behind her.

‘Sid, slow down!’ she heard Sholto yell, but Sibyl couldn’t hear over the thunder of hooves. Beside her, she saw Sholto hit the horse several times with his crop, his body becoming hunched as he urged his horse on faster.

Steadily, he moved ahead of her, leaving her behind as he tried to draw level with Sibyl. Effie knew what he was doing but she felt the fear begin to set in as she was left alone now. She could do nothing but hold on. She couldn’t look down, the rushing ground was too dizzying. She tried pulling on the reins but Norma’s chase instinct was up; she would run for as long as the others ran.

Just hold on, she told herself. Just hold on.

She could see Sholto drawing closer, his horse’s head dipping with the exertion but his presence on Sibyl’s mare’s shoulder only encouraged her to go faster again.

‘Sid! Slow down! Slow down!’

He was pulling level but Sibyl didn’t even look at him. She was up in the stirrups, hips high and her head down low, her gaze cast squarely on Dumfries House.

Effie’s body felt cast from stone. She was rigid and unpliable. If she should fall, she was certain she would smash into a thousand pieces. She could see Sholto beginning to draw level, but he was so focused upon drawing up to Sibyl, he didn’t seem to have noticed the ha-ha looming ahead of them.

‘Sholto! Look out!’ she screamed, pulling desperately on the reins and drawing back as much as she could, trying to slow the horse.

She saw Sholto look up and see the looming ditch. His body tensed and gathered, but she didn’t see what happened next. Her own horse, spooked by the ha-ha, veered suddenly to the left and began running alongside it.

‘No!’ Effie cried, but her voice was strangled as she saw she was wholly alone now.

Still her little grey kept galloping, panicked, her spirits and nerves frayed by exhaustion and fright. The formal gardens and all their sense of order were just a few feet away above them, but Effie couldn’t get to them and she was aware of groundsmen beginning to stand up and wave their arms, of distant shouts.