“You are driving nobly,” said MacIan, and his words (which had no meaning whatever) sounded hoarse and ungainly even in his own ears.
They passed the next mile and a half swiftly and smoothly; yet among the many things which they passed in the course of it was a clump of eager policemen standing at a cross-road. As they passed, one of the policemen shouted something to the others; but nothing else happened. Eight hundred yards farther on, Turnbull stood up suddenly in the swaying car.
“My God, MacIan!” he called out, showing his first emotion of that night. “I don't believe it's the pace; it couldn't be the pace. I believe it's us.”
MacIan sat motionless for a few moments and then turned up at his companion a face that was as white as the moon above it.
“You may be right,” he said at last; “if you are, I must tell her.”
“I will tell the lady if you like,” said Turnbull, with his unconquered good temper.
“You!” said MacIan, with a sort of sincere and instinctive astonishment. “Why should you—no, I must tell her, of course——”
And he leant forward and spoke to the lady in the fur cap.
“I am afraid, madam, that we may have got you into some trouble,” he said, and even as he said it it sounded wrong, like everything he said to this particular person in the long gloves. “The fact is,” he resumed, desperately, “the fact is, we are being chased by the police.” Then the last flattening hammer fell upon poor Evan's embarrassment; for the fluffy brown head with the furry black cap did not turn by a section of the compass.
“We are chased by the police,” repeated MacIan, vigorously; then he added, as if beginning an explanation, “You see, I am a Catholic.”