ng face--clear pale skin, beautiful
eyes, more blue surely than gray--the whitest neck, with coils of brown
hair upon it--the mouth with its laughing freedom--yet reticent--no mere
silly sweetness!

Then putting on his brake, he began to coast down the hill, which opened
gently only to turn without notice into something scandalously
precipitous. The bicycle had been hired in Keswick, and had had a hard
season's use. The brake gave way at the worst moment of the hill, and
Faversham, unable to save himself, rushed to perdition. And by way of
doubling his misfortune, as in the course of his mad descent he reached
the side road on the left, there came the loud clatter of a cart, and a
young horse emerged almost at a gallop, with a man tugging vainly at its
rein.

Ten minutes later a group of men stood consulting by the side of the road
over Faversham's prostrate form. He was unconscious; his head and face
were covered with blood, and his left ankle was apparently broken. A
small open motor stood at the bottom of the hill, and an angry dispute
was going on between an old man in mire-stained working-clothes, and the
young doctor from Pengarth to whom the motor belonged.

"I say, Mr. Dixon, that you've got to take this man into Mr. Melrose's
house and look after him, till he is fit to be moved farther, or you'll
be guilty of his death, and I shall give evidence accordingly!" said the
doctor, with energy, as he raised himself from the injured man.

"Theer's noa place for him i' t' Tower, Mr. Undershaw, an' I'll take noa
sich liberty!"

"Then I will. Where's Mr. Melrose?"

"I' London--till to-morrow. Yo'll do nowt o' t' soart, doctor."

"We shall see. To carry him half a mile to the farm, when you might carry
him just across that bridge to the house, would be sheer murder. I won't
see it done. And if you do it, you'll be indicted for manslaughter. Now
then--why doesn't that hurdle come along?" The speaker looked impatiently
up the road; and, as he spoke, a couple of labourers appeared at the top
of the hill, carrying a hurdle between them.

Dixon threw looks of mingled wrath and perplexity at the doctor, and the
men.

"I tell yo', doctor, it conno' be done! Muster Melrose's orders mun be
obeyed. I have noa power to admit onybody to his house withoot his leave.
Yo' knaw yoursel'," he added in the doctor's ear, "what Muster Melrose
is."

Undershaw muttered something--expressing either wrath or scorn--behind
his mousta