CHAPTER IX THE OUTRAGE
A beautiful starlit night had followed on the day of incessant
rain: a cool, balmy, late summer's night, essentially English in its
suggestion of moisture and scent of wet earth and dripping leaves.
The magnificent coach, drawn by four of the finest
thoroughbreds in England, had driven off along the London road, with
Sir Percy Blakeney on the box, holding the reins in his slender
feminine hands, and beside him Lady Blakeney wrapped in costly furs.
A fifty-mile drive on a starlit summer's night! Marguerite had hailed
the notion of it with delight. . . . Sir Percy was an enthusiastic
whip; his four thoroughbreds, which had been sent down to Dover a
couple of days before, were just sufficiently fresh and restive to add
zest to the expedition and Marguerite revelled in anticipation of the
few hours of solitude, with the soft night breeze fanning her cheeks,
her thoughts wandering, whither away? She knew from old experience
that Sir Percy would speak little, if at all: he had often driven her
on his beautiful coach for hours at night, from point to point,
without making more than one or two casual remarks upon the weather or
the state of the roads.
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