But at the foot of the hill there was a bad patch in the road and crossing it too fast and with the added weight the back tire suddenly deflated. David braked with a vehemence that nearly threw Leni forward over his head. “Oh dear, that’s really a nuisance,” he said, contemplatively, coming to a standstill and viewing the rear wheel. “We’ll just have to push on and walk. Plenty of time if we hurry a bit.” He wheeled the machine for a little way, then it occurred to him that it was no help and that they would gain time by leaving it. He took it through a gate into a field and partly hid it in a hedgerow.

They went on again, but Leni was limping from her right knee; she could not walk very fast, and the Junction lights seemed far away. He put his arm round her so that she might lean some of her weight on him. A little wood came slowly towards them on the left, snuffing out the roadway and changing the sound of their footsteps. From the distance came the clank of wagons in the shunting yard, and an owl mournfully replied from the little wood near by. They both laughed at that. But when they entered the moonlight again the horizon glow looked no nearer. “Just a matter of stepping out,” he said, but they could not easily increase their pace. And when, still a long way off, they heard the train they had aimed for puffing out of the station, it was almost a relief to slacken, to sit on a stile while David smoked a pipe, to talk intermittently and catch the tiny friendly sounds of a twig snapping or a dog barking distinctly.

An early morning train left Marsland at six-five, and David thought it would probably connect with other trains so that they could reach the coast by afternoon. They had six hours to wait — no big hardship on a summer night. Half a mile further on he knew that the side of the road heaped into a dry bed of bracken; sometimes, cycling around, he had paused there for a few minutes’ rest. It was a place called Potts Corner, though why and who Potts was nobody knew. But there was a big elm growing there, and a signpost marking a field path to Stamford Magna.

So when they were tired of talking they walked to the Corner and lay down on the turf and bracken. There are some moments that are hung in memory like a lamp; they shine and swing gently and one can look back on them when all else has faded into distance and darkness. Often afterwards David remembered that roadside corner and the hours he spent there; and sometimes he thought of things he would like to have said and done while there was yet a chance; but actually he said and did very little, because he was tired, and with tiredness had come an old familiar inability to make up his mind. Presently, with his arms round her, she fell asleep. A little wind stirred in the elm overhead; the air grew chilly as the night advanced. He began to wish he had brought an overcoat. For that matter he wished he had brought food, and far more money than was in his pockets; and then he reflected how bad he really was at planning these things, and how much more efficient Jessica would have been. And also he remembered Leni’s own carelessness of detail when she had tried to take her life at Sandmouth; strange that he should be showing such similar lack of forethought in his efforts to save it. And then he began to feel sleepy himself.