Not ten yards ahead Tietjens saw a tea-tray, the underneath of a black-lacquered tea-tray, gliding towards them: mathematically straight, just rising from the mist. He shouted: mad: the blood in his head. His shout was drowned by the scream of the horse: he had swung it to the left. The cart turned up: the horse emerged from the mist: head and shoulders: pawing. A stone sea-horse from the fountain of Versailles! Exactly that! Hanging in air for an eternity: the girl looking at it, leaning slightly forward. The horse didn't come over backwards: he had loosened the reins. It wasn't there any more. The damndest thing that _could_ happen! He had known it would happen. He said: "We're all right now!" There was a crash and scraping: like twenty tea-trays: a prolonged sound. They must be scraping along the mud-guard of the invisible car. He had the pressure of the horse's mouth: the horse was away: going hell for leather. He increased the pressure. The girl said: "I know I'm all right with you." They were suddenly in bright sunlight: cart: horse: commonplace hedgerows. They were going uphill: a steep brae. He wasn't certain she hadn't said: "Dear!" or "My dear!" Was it possible after so short . . .? But it had been a long night. He was, no doubt, saving her life too. He increased his pressure on the horse's mouth gently: up to all his twelve stone: all his strength. The hill told too. Steep, white road between shaven grass banks! Stop; damn you! Poor beast . . . The girl fell out of the cart. No! jumped clear! Out to the animal's head. It threw its head up. Nearly off her feet: she was holding the bit. . . . She couldn't! Tender mouth . . . afraid of horses. . . . He said: "Horse cut!" Her face like a little white blancmange! "Come quick," she said. "I must hold a minute," he said, "might go off if I let go to get down. Badly cut?" "Blood running down solid! Like an apron," she said. He was at last at her side. It was true. But not so much like an apron. More like a red, varnished stocking. He said: "You've a white petticoat on. Get over the hedge; jump it, and take it off . . ." "Tear it into strips?" she asked. "Yes!" He called to her; she was suspended halfway up the bank: "Tear one half off first. The rest into strips." She said: "All right!" She didn't go over the quickset as neatly as he had expected. No take off. But she was over. . . . The horse, trembling, was looking down, its nostrils distended, at the blood pooling from its near foot. The cut was just on the shoulder. He put his left arm right over the horse's eyes. The horse stood it, almost with a sigh of relief. . . . A wonderful magnetism with horses. Perhaps with women too? God knew. He was almost certain she had said "Dear."