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option in the matter. He said, “Good-bye, sir,” and let in his clutch, and went running down the hill towards Carlisle.
    He was a young and vigorous man, not unduly tired by having driven a good car all night. He was three hundred miles from London, where a girl was waiting for him; as he ate his breakfast an idea was forming in his mind. He could make a quick run down the North road in the limousine, average forty-five, easy. Forty-five into three hundred miles, that made six and two-third hours. Allow a bit for going into London—call it seven hours. He looked at his watch; be on the road again by half-past eight. That meant home by half-past three, an hour late, but still with most of her half-day to go. And it wasn’t as if he was really tired.
    A girl would like a chap to put himself about like that for her.
    He paid his bill, and started on the London road.
    In the middle of the morning, running at a high speed three miles short of Retford, a small car turned out suddenly across his path. At eighty miles an hour you cannot swerve and dodge; the limousine hit the near-front wheel to off-front wheel and threw the small car to the hedge. Itself it was deflected to the right side of the road to hit a five-ton lorry coming from the town. When finally they got the wreckage off him, Donaghue was dead.
    Elsie sat waiting for him all that afternoon. I believe she is waiting for him still.

CHAPTER III
    W ARREN was hungry. He watched the car depart, then walked down to the station to enquire where he could get some food. A solitary porter cleaning lamps directed him to a cottage half a mile away that in the season sold meals to summer visitors. Warren set out up the road.
    As he went, his hand strayed to his unshaven chin. He had no razor, and to get one in this district would be practically impossible; he must give up that. He would have to do something about his teeth, though; washing could wait an opportunity. Savages cleaned their teeth on bits of stick; he could not see himself performing with a bit of heather. It was altogether in a lighter mood that he arrived at the cottage.
    A woman, not very old but bent with rheumatism, opened the door to him. Warren asked for breakfast. “I could do a pair of eggs an’ a cup o’ tea,” she said doubtfully. “I haven’t any baker’s bread this time o’ year. Ye’ll have to have just what we have ourselves.”
    He sat at her kitchen table while she busied herself to get him breakfast. As he waited, he studied the map; he found that he was very near the Wall. Northeast seemed to be the best direction if he wanted exercise; a track led up across the moor in the direction of Bellingham and the Cheviots. From the contours it appeared that that would give him all the exercise he wanted for a week or two.
    She brought him two fried eggs, a flat home-made loaf of brownish bread, butter and jam and a pot of strong tea. He ate ravenously at first but with a quickly fading appetite; it was all that he could do to get through the second egg. He had several cups of tea, however, and felt satisfied and well, although he had not eaten very much.
    He lit a pipe, paid her the shilling that she asked him for the meal, and, as an afterthought, bought one of her flat and dirty-looking loaves for twopence. From the look of the map it seemed unlikely that he would find a restaurant for lunch; it would be better to take what food he could with him. He broke the loaf into two halves and put one in each pocket of his ulster. Then he set out along the track up on to the moor.
    He walked all day, striding along over the black sodden moors, his ulster pulled about his ears. It rained most of the day; a thin, persistent misty drizzle that cleared in the evening as he dropped down into Bellingham. All day he kept to a rough track that wound among the heather-covered hills, always in seeming danger of obliteration, never entirely disappearing. He was not hungry, rather curiously. He ate a few mouthfuls