The Lady Evelyn by Max Pemberton

It wanted an hour of dawn when Evelyn quitted the lonely house. She had given no instructions to the driver, nor did he appear to expect any. In truth, his orders were very far from being in accordance with the old gypsy's promise. A deed of blood had been done and the daylight would discover it. The woman who could tell something of the story would tell it at once if liberty were given her. So said those who entrapped her. and, desiring to withhold liberty as long as might be, they sent the carriage westward, away toward Harrow and the villages.

Evelyn herself did not suspect this; nor would it have alarmed her had she done so. As one awakened from a dream of death, she tried to shut the picture of the house from her heavy eyes, to drown the cries she had heard, to forget the humiliations. Dark and lonely as the way was, the black shapes of the trees seemed emblems of her liberty; the silent houses so many tokens of the world regained. She cared not where or why, so long as she might breathe the sweet air and tell herself that God's mercy had saved her. For Gavin would she live -- her whole life should be spent in quest of the man she loved; of one who seemed to call her even from the darkness. And of Gavin were her thoughts when the carriage stopped at last and the driver bade her descend.