A one-horse-fly appeared in the distance. When it came near, Harold recognized it as the one in which he had driven with Beatrice from the station to the hotel.
“If you will allow me,” said Harold to Major Wilson, “I will send to the hotel for my overcoat and hat.”
“Do so by all means,” said Major Wilson. “There is a decent little inn some distance on the road, where you will be able to get a brush down—you certainly need one. I’ll give my sergeant instructions to send some telegrams at the junction.”
“Perhaps you will kindly ask him to return to me my watch,” said Harold. “I don’t suppose that he will need it now.”
Harold stopped the fly, and wrote upon a card of his own the following words, “A shocking thing has happened that keeps me from you. My poor father is dead. Return to town by first train.”
He instructed the driver to go to the Priory Hotel and deliver the card into the hand of the lady whom he had driven there the previous evening, and then to pay Harold’s bill, drive the lady to the junction, and return with the overcoat and hat to the inn on the road.
Harold gave the man a couple of sovereigns, and the driver said that he would be able easily to convey the lady to the junction in time for the first train.
While the sergeant went away to send the Chief Constable’s telegrams, Major Wilson and Harold drove off together in the dog-cart—the man with the truncheon and the men who had carried the bill-hooks respectfully saluted as the vehicle passed.
In the course of another half hour, Harold was in the centre of a cloud of dust, produced by the vigorous action of an athlete at the little inn, who had been engaged to brush him down. When he caught sight of himself in a looking-glass on entering the inn, Harold was as much amazed as he had been when he heard from the Chief Constable that he had been wandering round the wood all night. He felt that he could not blame the woodcutters for taking him for a tramp.
He managed to eat some breakfast, and then he fly came up with his overcoat and hat. He spoke only one sentence to the driver.