peculiar temperament," he said quietly.
"If he finds himself at home in a comfortable room when he comes to his
senses, I am quite sure that he will have a better chance of recovery.
He cannot possibly be made comfortable here, and he will feel the shock
of what has happened all the more if he finds himself still in the
neighbourhood when he opens his eyes. If there is any change in his
condition, we can easily stop somewhere on the way."

The woman pocketed the two sovereigns.

"That's common sense, sir," she agreed heartily, "and I'm sure we are
very much obliged to you. If we had a decent room, and a roof above it,
you'd be heartily welcome, but as it is, this is no place for a sick
man, and those that say different don't know what they are talking
about. That's a real careful young man who's going to take you along in
the motor-car. He'll get you there safe, if any one will."

"What I say is," her husband protested sullenly, "that we ought to wait
for the doctor's orders. I'm against seeing a poor body like that jolted
across the country in an open motor-car, in his state. I'm not sure that
it's for his good."

"And what business is it of yours, I should like to know?" the woman
demanded sharply. "You get up-stairs and begin moving the furniture from
where the rain's coming sopping in. And if so be you can remember while
you do it that this is a judgment that's come upon us, why, so much the
better. We are evil-doers, all of us, though them as likes the easy ways
generally manage to forget it."

The man retreated silently. The woman sat down upon a stool and waited.
Gerald sat opposite to her, the battered dressing-case upon his knees.
Between them was stretched the body of the unconscious man.

"Are you used to prayer, young sir?" the woman asked.

Gerald shook his head, and the woman did not pursue the subject. Only
once her eyes were half closed and her words drifted across the room.

"The Lord have mercy on this man, a sinner!"

CHAPTER IV

"My advice to you, sir, is to chuck it!"

Gerald turned towards the chauffeur by whose side he was seated a little
stiffly, for his limbs were numbed with the cold and exhaustion. The
morning had broken with a grey and uncertain light. A vaporous veil of
mist seemed to have taken the place of the darkness. Even from the top
of the hill where the car had come to a standstill, there was little to
be seen.

"We must have come forty miles already," the chauff