somehow, but it would have been a chance. As it
was, I was helpless. Perkins tried to climb across, but you couldn't do
it going at that pace. The wheels were whirring like a high wind and the
big body creaking and groaning with the strain. But the lights were
brilliant, and one could steer to an inch. I remember thinking what an
awful and yet majestic sight we should appear to any one who met us. It
was a narrow road, and we were just a great, roaring, golden death to any
one who came in our path.

We got round the corner with one wheel three feet high upon the bank. I
thought we were surely over, but after staggering for a moment she
righted and darted onwards. That was the third corner and the last one.
There was only the park gate now. It was facing us, but, as luck would
have it, not facing us directly. It was about twenty yards to the left
up the main road into which we ran. Perhaps I could have done it, but I
expect that the steering-gear had been jarred when we ran on the bank.
The wheel did not turn easily. We shot out of the lane. I saw the open
gate on the left. I whirled round my wheel with all the strength of my
wrists. Perkins and I threw our bodies across, and then the next
instant, going at fifty miles an hour, my right front wheel struck full
on the right-hand pillar of my own gate. I heard the crash. I was
conscious of flying through the air, and then--and then--!

* * * * *

When I became aware of my own existence once more I was among some
brushwood in the shadow of the oaks upon the lodge side of the drive. A
man was standing beside me. I imagined at first that it was Perkins, but
when I looked again I saw that it was Stanley, a man whom I had known at
college some years before, and for whom I had a really genuine affection.
There was always something peculiarly sympathetic to me in Stanley's
personality; and I was proud to think that I had some similar influence
upon him. At the present moment I was surprised to see him, but I was
like a man in a dream, giddy and shaken and quite prepared to take things
as I found them without questioning them.

"What a smash!" I said. "Good Lord, what an awful smash!"

He nodded his head, and even in the gloom I could see that he was smiling
the gentle, wistful smile which I connected with him.

I was quite unable to move. Indeed, I had not any desire to try to move.
But my senses were exceedingly alert. I saw the wreck of the motor lit