A few minutes afterwards, as Lilly drove along the canal, she saw from the cab window a smart yellow-striped hired motor whiz past from the opposite direction. Richard was inside. She recognised him as he flashed by. Red as a lobster, his head slanting, he stared past her, with wild and searching glances, at the house that she had just left.
She hurriedly directed her driver to turn into a side street, for she had no desire to meet him till her fate with regard to the world had been decided. But in a few minutes she heard, with a beating heart, the same clatter of wheels that had died away in the distance coming behind her, and drawing nearer and nearer. The yellow side of the motor had almost shot beyond her, when the word "Stop!" brought it to a standstill, and at the same moment her cab drew up too.
Richard confronted her with his hand on the door-handle: "Where are you going?"
His voice rose to a feminine shrillness. Above his high starched collar his throat worked up and down convulsively.
She felt perfectly calm and mistress of the situation.
He appeared to her now a poor, helpless shadow of a creature, he who so long had been her lord and master.
"Please let me drive on, Richard," she said. "I have said good-bye to you by letter. I wanted a few things, and have been to fetch them. Why should we annoy each other further?"
"Turn round!" he said, grinding his teeth. "Turn round!"
"Why should I turn round?"
"I say you shall! You know where your home is. I will not allow you to knock about the world by yourself any longer, God knows what mayn't happen to you. Driver, turn round!"