At the same moment the speed of the car sensibly diminished. Jeekes put his arm across the young man at his side. “That door,” he said, touching his sleeve, “doesn’t seem to be properly shut. Would you mind ...” Robin pushed the door with his hand. “It seems all right,” he said. “Permit me ...” The secretary stretched across and pulled back the latch, releasing the door. It swung out. “Now close it,” said Mr. Jeekes. The door was flapping to and fro with the swaying of the car over the rough road and Robin had to half rise in order to comply with the request. He was leaning forward, steadying himself with one hand grasping the back of the driving-seat, when he received a tremendous shove in the back. At the same moment the car seemed to leap forward: he made a desperate effort to regain his balance, failed, and was whirled out head foremost on to the side of the road. Fortunately for himself he fell soft. The road ran here through a little wood of young oak and beech which came right down to the edge of the _chaussée_. The ground was deep in withered leaves which, with the rain and the water draining from the road’s high camber, were soft and soggy. Robin went full length into this muss with a thud that shook every bone in his body. His left leg, catching in a bare gorse-bush, acted as a brake and stopped him from rolling farther. He sat up, his mouth full of mud and his hair full of wet leaves, and felt himself carefully over. He contemplated rather ruefully a long rent in the left leg of his trousers just across the knee. “Jeekes!” he murmured; “he pushed me out! The dirty dog!” Then he remembered that, with the men in the car gone, he had lost trace again of Mary Trevert. His forcible ejection from the car was evidence enough of their determination to deal with Mary without interference from outside. It looked ominous. Robin sprang to his feet and rushed to the middle of the road. The _chaussée_ was absolutely empty. About a hundred yards from where he stood in the direction in which the car had been travelling the road made a sharp bend to the right, thus curtailing his view. Robin did not hesitate. Not waiting to retrieve his hat or even to wipe the mud from his face, he started off at a brisk run along the road in the direction in which the car had disappeared. He had not gone far before he found that his heavy overcoat was seriously impeding him. He stripped it off and, folding it, hid it beneath a bush just inside the plantation. Then he ran on again. Fresh disappointment awaited him when he rounded the bend in the road. A few hundred yards on the road turned again. There was no sign of the car. A cart piled high with manure was approaching, the driver, wearing wooden shoes and cracking at intervals a huge whip, trudging at the side. Robin stopped him. “Motor-car? Automobile?” he asked pointing in the direction from which the cart had come. The driver stared at him with a look of owlish stupidity.