‘Last train left twenty minutes ago, sir–the slow one–doesn’t get in till eleven.’ ‘I _must_ be there to-night,’ he repeated, mechanically. ‘There’s an express to Bolton, sir, in five minutes. If you took that, you might perhaps have a special on from there.’ This was the only plan, and he took it. He was in Bolton in half an hour. A few inquiries there. Yes–they would send him on with a special if he liked, but not for an hour. The line was blocked, and it could not be done before then. A sudden thought struck Jerome. One of his horses had been sent to Bolton two days before he left, for a certain dealer to dispose of: he knew it must still be there, for he had left orders that nothing was to be concluded about it till his return. The man’s place was close to the station, and it was but ten o’clock. It was a twenty miles’ ride to Wellfield, but with a swift horse he might be there sooner than by waiting an hour for a special train. How it was settled he knew not. His white intent face, and something of a silent urgency in his whole manner, caused the men to hasten their work. In little more than ten minutes he rode out of the town along the great north-eastern road. It was a moonlight night, and bitter cold–a contrast to that of twenty-four hours ago. He settled himself into his saddle, set his teeth, and tried to think it was a short way. He never confessed the feeling to himself, but he had little hope–his feeling was, not that he hastened to give Nita the comfort of his presence as soon as possible, but that he rode a race to speak to her and hear her speak to him before she died. The horse was fresh, was ready, and willing for the work; he shook his head, stretched his long legs and lean flanks, and ‘his thundering hoofs consumed the ground.’ Bending his head before the bitter air, Jerome gave him rein, and they flew quickly past village and farm and town, through one great dingy mass of square buildings and tall chimneys after another; through streets dazzling with lights, and flaring gin-palace windows, into a long stretch of quiet country, with the moon shining serenely on the silent fields.