"
The first match blew out immediately. So did the
second. He suggested that they should stop the carriage and
borrow the lamp from the driver.
"Oh, I don't want all that bother. Try again."
They entered the little wood as he tried to strike the
third match. At last it caught. Harriet poised the
umbrella rightly, and for a full quarter minute they
contemplated the face that trembled in the light of the
trembling flame. Then there was a shout and a crash. They
were lying in the mud in darkness. The carriage had overturned.
Philip was a good deal hurt. He sat up and rocked
himself to and fro, holding his arm. He could just make out
the outline of the carriage above him, and the outlines of
the carriage cushions and of their luggage upon the grey
road. The accident had taken place in the wood, where it
was even darker than in the open.
"Are you all right?" he managed to say. Harriet was
screaming, the horse was kicking, the driver was cursing
some other man.
Harriet's screams became coherent. "The baby--the
baby--it slipped--it's gone from my arms--I stole it!"
"God help me!" said Philip. A cold circle came round
his mouth, and, he fainted.
When he recovered it was still the same confusion. The
horse was kicking, the baby had not been found, and Harriet
still screamed like a maniac, "I stole it! I stole it! I
stole it! It slipped out of my arms!"
"Keep still!" he commanded the driver. "Let no one
move. We may tread on it.
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