Gustily sniffing in the huge sighs that advertised his terror, the red-headed Pinner boy obeyed. George drew down the ladder. “Stop up there; I shall be back in five minutes. If you move before then--” He left the trembling boy out of his own agitated fear to fill the unspoken doom. He walked slowly away in the direction opposite from the station until the haystack was merged and lost in the blackness that surrounded it. Then, doubling back, he made for the road; pounded along it at desperate speed. Most satisfactorily did that bounding, lurching, stumbling run along the dark, uneven lane punish this crime-steeped George. Well he realised, before he had sped a hundred yards, that guilt lashes with a double thong. She had scourged him mentally; now with scorpions she physically lashed him. As it had been racked throbbed that left arm encircling the basket wherein in wild fear the Rose clung to ease the dreadful bruisings that each oscillation gave her; as it were a ton-weight did that hand-bag drag his right arm, thud his thigh; as he were breathing fire did his tearing respirations sear his throat; as a great piston were driving in his skull did the blood hammer his temples. Topping a low rise he sighted the station lights below. Simultaneously, from behind a distant whistle there sprang to his ears the low rumble of the coming train. This history is not to be soiled with what George said at the sound. With the swiftness and the scorching of flame his dreadful commination leapt from the tortured Rose, terrified in her basket, to the red-headed Pinner boy wrestling in prayer upon the haystack--from the roughness of the lane that laboured his passage to the speed of the oncoming train that hammered at his fate. He hurled himself down the rise; with his last breath gasped for a ticket; upon a final effort projected himself into the train; went prone upon a seat. He was away! * * * * * It was when George was some fifteen minutes from Temple Colney that the red-headed Pinner boy, bolstered up with prayer, commended his soul to God; slipped with painful thud from the haystack; pelted for Par-par. CHAPTER IX. Disaster At Temple Colney. I. Three days have passed.