de him, she had thrown herself across him and had got at the
brake and levers. He was too much surprised to make any resistance; he
probably would not have tried to hinder her in any case, as he could
not have done so without using his strength. The car was stopped in a
few seconds; he had intuitively steered it until it stood still.

'How ridiculous!' he exclaimed. 'As if one ever stopped for such a
thing!'

Margaret's eyes flashed angrily and her answer came short and sharp.

'Turn back at once,' she said, and she sat down beside him on the front
seat.

He obeyed, for he could do nothing else. In running away from the
accident, he had simply done what most chauffeurs do under the
circumstances. His experience told him that the man was not killed,
though he had lain motionless in the road for a few moments. Logotheti
had seen perfectly well that the car had struck the hind wheel of the
bicycle without touching the man's body. Moreover, the man had been on
the wrong side of the road, and it was his fault that he had been run
into. Logotheti had not meant to give him a chance to make out a case.

But now he turned back, obedient to Margaret's command. Before she had
stopped the car it had run nearly a mile from the scene of the
accident. When it reached the spot again, coming back at a more
moderate pace, nearly five minutes had elapsed. She found the man
leaning against the rail fence that followed the outer curve of the
turning. It was the man they had so often met on the other road, in his
square-toed kid boots and ill-fitting clothes; it was Edmund
Lushington, with his soft student's hat off, and his face a good deal
scratched by the smashing of his tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles. They
had been tied behind with a black string, and the rims of them, broken
in two, hung from his ears. His nose was bleeding profusely, as he
leaned against the fence, holding his head down. He was covered with
mud, his clothes were torn, and he was as miserable, damaged and
undignified a piece of man as ever dreaded being taken at disadvantage
by the idol of his affections. He would have made a pact with the
powers of evil for a friendly wall or a clump of trees when he saw the
car coming back. There was nothing but the fence.

The car stopped close beside him. He held his handkerchief to his nose,
covering half his face as he looked up.

'Are you hurt, Monsieur?' Margaret asked anxiously in French.

'On the contrary, Mademoise