"I think I shall go out of London," said Gurney. "I'd sooner ... I'd sooner die in the country, I think." He withdrew from the window and began to pace up and down the room again. "Going to stampede with the rest of 'em?" asked Thrale. "Extraordinarily infectious thing, panic." "I don't think it's that exactly ..." hesitated Gurney. "Animal fear," said Thrale. "The terror of the wild thing threatened with the unknown. The runaway horse terrified and rushing to its own destruction. Fly, fly, fly from the threat of peril as you did once on the prairies, when to fly meant safety." "It's so infernally depressing in London," said Gurney. "All right, go and brood on death in the country," replied Thrale. "That may cheer you up a bit. But, take my advice, don't run. Walk at a snail's pace and check the least tendency to hurry. Once you begin to quicken your pace, you will find yourself hurrying desperately--and then stampede the hell of terror at your heels. After all, you know, you may survive. It isn't likely that every man will die." Gurney caught eagerly at that. "No, no, of course it isn't," he said. "But wouldn't one be much more likely to survive if one were living in the country, or by the sea--in some fairly isolated place, for example. I meant to go down to Cornwall for my holiday this year, to a little cottage on the coast about four miles from Padstow; don't you think in pure air and healthy surroundings like that, one would stand a better chance?" "Very likely," said Thrale carelessly. "But don't run. In any case you'd better wait till the middle of the week. The first rush will be over then." "Yes. Perhaps. I'll go on Wednesday, or Tuesday...." Thrale smiled grimly. "Well, good night," he said. "I'm going to bed." When he had gone, Gurney went to the window again. The sounds of riot from Piccadilly had died down to a low, confused murmur. A motor-car whizzed by along Jermyn Street, and two people passed on foot, a man and a woman; the woman was leaning heavily on the man's arm. Gurney turned once more to his pacing of the room. He was trying to realize the unrealizable fact that the world offered no refuge. For a full hour he struggled with himself, with that new, strange instinct which rose up and urged him to fly for his life. At last weary and overborne he threw himself into a chair by the dying fire and began to cry like a lost child; even as Ernst, the waiter, had cried.... 4 The panic emigration lasted until Monday evening, and then came news which checked and stayed the rush for the ports of Liverpool, Southampton and Queenstown. The plague was already in America. It had come, as Thrale had prophesied from the West. At the docks many of those favoured emigrants who had secured berths, hesitated; if it was to be a choice between death in America and death in England, they preferred to die at home.