No, he had let a quixotic, a foolish impulse run away with him! He should have waited until Arthur had brought down the money, and then he should have returned it. That had been the simple, the matter-of-fact course, and all that it had been incumbent on him to do. As it was, for what was he spending himself and undergoing these hardships? To hasten the ruin of the bank, to meet failure half-way, to render his father penniless a few hours earlier, rather than later. To mask a rascality that need never be disclosed, since no one would hear of it unless the Squire talked. Yes, he had been a fool to hurl himself thus through the night, chilled to the bone, with fevered head and ice-cold feet, when he might have been a hundred times better employed in supporting his father in his need, in putting a brave front on things, and smiling in the face of suspicion. To be sure, it was only as the night advanced, or rather in the small hours of the morning, when his ardor had died down and Josina’s pleading face was no longer before him, and the spirit of adventure was low in him, that he entertained these thoughts. For a time all went well. He found his relay waiting for him at the Heygate Inn by Wellington, where the name of the Lion was all-powerful; and after covering at top speed the short stage that followed, he drove, still full of warmth and courage, into Wolverhampton at a quarter before eleven. Over thirty miles in three hours! He met with a little delay there; the horses had to be fetched from another stable, in another street. But he got away in the end, and ten minutes later he was driving over a land most desolate by day, but by night lurid with the flares of a hundred furnace-fires. He rattled up to the Castle at Birmingham at half an hour after midnight, found the house still lighted and lively, and by dint of scolding and bribing was presently on the road again with a fresh team, and making for Coventry, with every inclination to think that the difficulties of posting by night had been much exaggerated. But here his good luck left him. At the half-way stage he met with disaster. He had passed the up coach half an hour before, and no orders now anticipated him. When he reached the Stone Bridge there were no horses; on the contrary, there were three travellers waiting there, clamorous to get on to Birmingham. Unwarily he jumped out of his chaise, and “No horses?” he cried. “Impossible! There must be horses!” But the ostler gave him no more than a stolid stare. “Nary a nag!” he replied coolly. “Nor like to be, master, wi’ every Quaker in Birmingham gadding up and down as if his life ’ung on it! Why, if I’ve——” “Quakers? What the devil do you mean?” Clement cried, thinking that the man was reflecting on him.