e dark-visaged couple
who had been so plausibly eager for the "pretty idea." The sharpened
instinct of cowardice lit up the situation to him in one swift flash.
The blood roared and surged to his head as though thousands of
floodgates had been opened in his veins and arteries, and his brain was
the common sluice in which all the torrents met. He saw nothing but a
blur around him. Then the blood ebbed away in quick waves, till his
very heart seemed drained and empty, and he stood nervelessly,
helplessly, dumbly watching the child, bearing its accursed burden with
slow, relentless steps nearer and nearer to the group that waited
sheep-like to receive him. A fascinated curiosity compelled Lester to
turn his head towards the fugitives; the cab had started at hot pace in
the direction of the station.

The next moment Lester was running, running faster than any of those
present had ever seen a man run, and--he was not running away. For
that stray fraction of his life some unwonted impulse beset him, some
hint of the stock he came from, and he ran unflinchingly towards
danger. He stooped and clutched at the Easter egg as one tries to
scoop up the ball in Rugby football. What he meant to do with it he had
not considered, the thing was to get it. But the child had been
promised cakes and sweetmeats if it safely gave the egg into the hands
of the kindly old gentleman; it uttered no scream, but it held to its
charge with limpet grip. Lester sank to his knees, tugging savagely at
the tightly clasped burden, and angry cries rose from the scandalized
onlookers. A questioning, threatening ring formed round him, then
shrank back in recoil as he shrieked out one hideous word. Lady
Barbara heard the word and saw the crowd race away like scattered
sheep, saw the Prince forcibly hustled away by his attendants; also she
saw her son lying prone in an agony of overmastering terror, his spasm
of daring shattered by the child's unexpected resistance, still
clutching frantically, as though for safety, at that white-satin
gew-gaw, unable to crawl even from its deadly neighbourhood, able only
to scream and scream and scream. In her brain she was dimly conscious
of balancing, or striving to balance, the abject shame which had him
now in thrall against the one compelling act of courage which had flung
him grandly and madly on to the point of danger. It was only for the
fraction of a minute that she stood watching the two entangled figure