To the south of Congleton one of the tyres softened, immediately after Dick had lighted his lamps. He stopped the car and got down again. They were two miles Astbury, the nearest village. He had just, with the resignation of experience, reached for the tool-bag, when Lily exclaimed: “Is she asleep, or what?” Sophia was not asleep, but she was apparently not conscious.
It was a difficult and a trying situation for two lovers. Their voices changed momentarily to the tone of alarm and consternation, and then grew firm again. Sophia showed life but not reason. Lily could feel the poor old lady’s heart.
“Well, there’s nothing for it!” said Dick, briefly, when all their efforts failed to rouse her.
“What—shall you do?”
“Go straight home as quick as I can on three tyres. We must get her over to this side, and you must hold her. Like that we shall keep the weight off the other side.”
He pitched back the tool-bag into its box. Lily admired his decision.
It was in this order, no longer under the spell of the changing beauty of nocturnal landscapes, that they finished the journey. Constance had opened the door before the car came to a stop in the gloom of King Street. The young people considered that she bore the shock well, though the carrying into the house of Sophia’s inert, twitching body, with its hat forlornly awry, was a sight to harrow a soul sturdier than Constance.
When that was done, Dick said curtly: “I’m off. You stay here, of course.”
“Where are you going?” asked Lily.
“Doctor!” snapped Dick, hobbling rapidly down the steps.