. I am sorry, Patricia, I won't do it
again."

"You won't try to understand me like that? Promise," she urged.

"I didn't try then. I only knew. I promise I won't tell you again."

"That's not enough," she persisted, twisting her fingers under cover
of the long sleeves. "You mustn't know. You must not be able to do it.
I won't bear it. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Then promise."

"I've promised all I can. I certainly won't try to know. I can't help
it involuntarily."

"You must. I insist--Christopher, quick."

They were running at a great pace along a straight level piece of road
with high banks on either side, and by the roadside at regular
intervals were piles of broken granite. Christopher's attention was
fixed on a distant speck that might be a danger-signal and he did not
answer her or notice the nearer signal of danger in her white face.

She was in the grip of her old wild passion again, on fire with her
need of assurance, and in a gust of anger she caught at the wheel that
seemed to claim his mind. The car swerved violently, jolted up on to
the turf, bumped madly along at a dangerous tilt, swerved back into
the road two feet clear of a grey pile of stone. Only then did
Christopher know her fingers were gripped between his hands and the
steel wheel. He brought the car to a standstill and her released hand
fell white and numb to her side. She neither spoke nor moved, but
gazed before her, oblivious even of her crushed fingers.

There was a running brook the other side of the hedge and a convenient
gate. He soaked his handkerchief in it, came back to her and put the
numbed hand on the cool linen. His grip had been like iron and the
averted disaster so near as to be hardly passed from his senses, yet
he felt sick and ashamed at this almost trifling price they had to
pay. He felt each bruised finger carefully and bound them up as best
he could, and only then did he speak.

"I'm fearfully sorry, Patricia, I didn't know."

She looked vaguely at the white bound hand.

"My fingers? Oh, I'm glad. You shouldn't have tied them up."

He paid no heed, but having examined the car, climbed back to his
place.

"We must go on," he remarked, "so it's no use asking you if you are
too frightened, Patricia."

"You might put me out on the roadside," she suggested dully.

To that, too, he paid no heed and they started again.

The miles slipped by in unbroken silence. It was not till they were
nearly home that C