at 'Erb was not even yet sure
whether this was or was not the wild man who had leapt upon him from the
stairs in the hall at "The Myrtles," eight or nine hours ago.

As the train ran out of Todsmoor, "I shouldn't wonder," said Dick
comfortably to Amaryllis, "if that's the last fence, and a straight run
home for us."

But there was fear as well as disgust in the glance which Amaryllis
threw at the gross slumber of their prisoner.

She had felt his power stretched over half a county, and who should fix
its limit for her?

But she merely said:

"What time do we get to King's Cross, Dick?"

"Ten-thirty--on paper; but we're twenty minutes late already."

"Then--what'm I going to do then? Eleven o'clock, and me so tired!"

"You'll be all right. I'll see that you are," said Dick.

Apparently satisfied by this pledge, Amaryllis had almost fallen asleep
in her corner, now the furthest from Melchard, when Dick said:

"What you want to-night, my prize-packet, is a fairy godmother."

"She would save lots of trouble," admitted Amaryllis.

"And all you've got is that mildewed chaperon, snoring there."

Amaryllis shuddered.

"I don't know even yet," she said, "why you brought it--a thing you
might have left tied in a bundle by the roadside. He's only been
dangerous and disgusting. And you said----"

"Said it wasn't to take it out of him that I did it. Did I? If I did,
it's right."

There was a silence.

"I suppose you could guess," said Dick, breaking it.

"Was it because you thought of the harm that he does, making drugs and
selling them to sad people and bad people, Dick?"

"That might have been a good reason. It's not my line, though--if I'm on
oath."

"Oh, but you're not, Dick. You needn't say anything unless you want to
tell me."

"I do. That reason wasn't mine. I don't feel like that about people in
the lump. And now they say _the_ people is free and democratic--doing
things, you know, off its own bat, when it hasn't a cat's notion of
cricket--now I think, as far as I think about the lump at all, that it'd
better have a fair run at its own game. Result may be anything; might be
a new and a good one. But I simply hate seeing the old professional
groundsman pretending that the new mob of boys likes cricket, and
sweating himself all for nothing.

"As for the drug business, it cures in the end by killing, and
grandmotherly legislation belongs to dear old tyranny; and I'm not at
all sure, if five-eighths