"He did not, so that's that. You better make for those trees."

"If you think I'm going to desert," began Flora stoutly.

"You're going to obey orders, my dear. Go on--push off."

There was a quality in his voice that compelled obedience.

"Oh, I hate you," said Flora. "Please, please let me stay."

But he was inexorable.

"They'll be here in a minute. Go!" he ordered.

And to hide her tears of rage and mortification Flora went.

Richard glanced over her shoulder at the oncoming lights.

"Pity about that pistol," he muttered.

On the road at his feet lay a lady's hand-bag with silk cords. It was
part of the equipment furnished by Mrs. Barraclough. Richard stooped
and picked it up. There was a barrel of tar and a sand heap by the
sign board and it struck him that both might by useful. With all the
speed he could command he rolled the tar barrel up the road and left it
blocking the way. Then he returned to the sand heap and filled the
hand-bag very full and tightened the strings. It felt quite business
like as he spun it in the air.

The noise of the oncoming Ford was now plainly detectable, but with it
was another sound, a sound that caused him to throw up his head and
listen. From the Oxshott road it came, the tump--tump--tump of a
single cylinder motor cycle engine. He knew that music very well, had
heard it a score of times during his three weeks' imprisonment. The
particular ring of the exhaust could not be mistaken.

"That's Laurence's bike for a thousand pounds," he exclaimed and
quickly pulled the hood of the cloak over his head.

To guess at the relative distances, the motor cycle should arrive half
a minute before the car and banking on the chance, Richard sat down on
the heap of sand and waited.

It was Laurence right enough--in evening dress, and hatless, just as he
had sprung to the pursuit after at last they succeeded in breaking down
the door.

He saw the wrecked motor and what was apparently an old woman huddled
at the roadside. He pulled up within a couple of yards and shouted at
her.

"Hi! you Madam! seen a car with a man and a girl in it go by?"

But he received no answer even when he shouted the question a second
time. The old lady seemed painfully deaf and employing the most
regrettable language, Oliver Laurence descended from his mount, leant
it against the fence and came nearer to yell his inquiry into her ear.
He did not have time to recover from his surprise, w