“At your convenience, sir: no hurry, sir!” said the Runner, retreating to a discreet distance.
The sigh which escaped Miss Creed was one of such profound relief that it was plain her alarms had not until that moment been allayed. Sir Richard finished paying his shot, and with a brief: “Come, Pen!” tossed over his shoulder, left the taproom.
“He didn’t come to find me!” breathed Pen.
“Of course he didn’t.”
“I couldn’t help being a little alarmed. What shall we do now, sir?”
“Shake off your very undesirable travelling-acquaintance,” he replied briefly.
She gave a gurgle. “Yes, but how? I have such a fear that he means to go with us to Bristol.”
“But we are not going to Bristol. While he is being interrogated by that Runner, we, my child, are going to walk quietly out by the back door, and proceed by ways, which I trust will not prove as devious as the tapster’s description of them, to Colerne. There we shall endeavour to hire a vehicle to carry us to Queen Charlton.”
“Oh, famous!” cried Pen. “Let us go at once!”
Five minutes later they left the inn unobtrusively, by way of the yard, found themselves in a hayfield, and skirted it to a gate leading into a ragged spinney.