"Wouldn't it be safer to wait here for our own car?" she asked doubtfully, as she gazed at the steady rain. "Daren't risk it," he answered peremptorily. "If we had to stay the night this place is impossible. I suppose they can lend umbrellas, and you have a thick coat. They are putting in the mare now." When the cart came round, it was found that there was not an umbrella in the house. The September night was cold, and the rain fell unrelentingly. They were very uncomfortable, and there seemed nothing to say except to wonder where Baines and the car could be. The road seemed interminable, and, as the mare ambled along like one moving in her sleep, Gerald began to betray signs of desperate impatience. As they emerged from a rough lane, upon a wider road, they heard a long, sad whistle and the sound of a train. "I doubt ye've missed her," remarked the lad who drove. "Impossible! Make haste!" cried Gerald with some urgency. He ordered that the drowsy steed should be whipped up, and she, indignant at such outrage when by all the rules of the game she should have been sleeping in her stable, made a wild spurt. A quarter of a mile brought them to the little lonely station. All was still. The lights were out. The door, when Gerald tried it, was shut. They had missed the last train. When he came back to the side of the trap, and stood looking up at her, Virginia perceived that he was terribly vexed. Up to this moment he had maintained a composure and cheerfulness which was reassuring. Now, he was obviously nonplussed. In reply to questions, their driver said sullenly that it was of no use to fetch the station-master. He had gone home to bed. He couldn't make a train if there was no train. Gerald shook his cap, from the edge of which the water streamed, for the rain had become a downpour. "One gets out of the habit of calculating distance when one is used to a car," he said to Virginia, in a voice which was an odd blend of rage and apology. "They were such a time bringing that food--we started too late. The only thing now is to go on to Pulborough, I suppose." The lad intimated that this journey, if taken, would be made upon their own feet. The mare could do no more. She would just get home to her stable, and that was all. Virginia could not offer to walk. She would not risk over-exertion, with her return to Gaunt so near. She tried to cheer Gerald with the reminder that, most likely, when they returned to the inn at Dilvington, they would find Baines and the car awaiting them. As he knew this to be impossible, the thought could not console him. He climbed up at the back of the wet cart thoroughly out of temper, muttering that a wooden horse with three legs could have done two miles in three quarters of an hour.