and haul the reins so tightly that the bit
would slip back into the horse's mouth.... He moved from the middle of
the road, and was conscious that Sheila had moved, too. His breath was
coming quickly, and he felt again that sense of shrinking, that curious
desire to run away. He saw a wheel of the cart lurch up as it passed
over a stone in the road, and instantly panic seized him. "My God," he
thought, "if that had been me!... He saw himself flung to the ground by
the maddened horse and the wheel passing over his body, crunching his
flesh and bones. He had the sensation of blood gushing from his mouth,
and for a moment or two he felt as if he had actually suffered the
physical shock of being broken beneath the cart wheel....

"I can't!" he muttered, and then he turned and ran swiftly to the side
of the road and climbed on to the bank, struggling to break through the
thorn hedge at the top of it. His hands were torn and bleeding and once
he slipped and fell forward and his face was scratched by the thorns....

7

He had thrown himself over the hedge and had lain there, with his eyes
closed, trembling. He was crying now, not with fright, but with remorse.
He had failed in courage, and perhaps the horse had dashed into the
village and killed a child.... He wondered what Sheila would say, and
then he started up, his eyes wide with horror, thinking that perhaps
Sheila had been killed. He climbed up the bank, and jumped over the low
hedge into the roadway. There were some men approaching him, coming
from the direction in which the horse had come, but he did not pay any
heed to them. He began to run towards the village. A little distance
from the place where he and Sheila had stood to watch the oncoming
animal, the road made another bend, and when he had reached this bend,
he met Sheila.

"You needn't hurry _now_," she said.

He did not hear the emphasis she laid on the word "now." "Are you all
right?" he asked anxiously.

She did not answer, but strode on past him.

"Are you all right?" he repeated, following after her.

"It's a bit late to ask that," she said, turning and facing him. "I
might 'a' been killed for all you cared, so long as you were safe
yourself!"

He shrank back from her, unable to answer, and the men came up, before
she could say anything else to him.

"Did ye see the horse runnin' away?" one of them said to her.

"You'll find it down the road a piece," she replied. "It's leg's broke.
It tum