hen they are fairly turned back towards Cambridge display. And there
was something odd about Benham, as though he had a large circular
halo with a thick rim. This, it seemed, had replaced his hat. He was
certainly hatless. The warm light of the sinking sun shone upon the
horse and upon Benham's erect figure and upon his face, and gleams of
fire kept flashing from his head to this rim, like the gleam of drawn
swords seen from afar. As he drew nearer this halo detached itself from
him and became a wheel sticking up behind him. A large, clumsy-looking
bicycle was attached to the dog-cart behind. The expression of Benham's
golden face was still a stony expression; he regarded his friend with
hard eyes.

"You all right, Benham?" cried Prothero, advancing into the road.

His eye examined the horse. It looked all right, if anything it was a
trifle subdued; there was a little foam about its mouth, but not very
much.

"Whoa!" said Benham, and the horse stopped. "Are you coming up,
Prothero?"

Prothero clambered up beside him. "I was anxious," he said.

"There was no need to be."

"You've broken your whip."

"Yes. It broke.... GET up!"

They proceeded on their way to Cambridge.

"Something has happened to the wheel," said Prothero, trying to be at
his ease.

"Merely a splinter or so. And a spoke perhaps."

"And what is this behind?"

Benham made a half-turn of the head. "It's a motor-bicycle."

Prothero took in details.

"Some of it is missing."

"No, the front wheel is under the seat."

"Oh!"

"Did you find it?" Prothero asked, after an interval.

"You mean?"

"He ran into a motor-car--as I was passing. I was perhaps a little to
blame. He asked me to bring his machine to Cambridge. He went on in the
car.... It is all perfectly simple."

Prothero glanced at the splinters in the wheel with a renewed interest.

"Did your wheel get into it?" he asked. Benham affected not to hear. He
was evidently in no mood for story-telling.

"Why did you get down, Prothero?" he asked abruptly, with the note of
suppressed anger thickening his voice.

Prothero became vividly red. "I don't know," he said, after an interval.

"I DO," said Benham, and they went on in a rich and active silence to
Cambridge, and the bicycle repair shop in Bridge Street, and Trinity
College. At the gate of Trinity Benham stopped, and conveyed rather by
acts than words that Prothero was to descend. He got down meekly enough,
although he fel