He stood there in the darkness for what seemed an age. He was petrified, not with fear, but with a strange mingling of fury and loathing. He tried to speak, and found he had no voice; nor, anyhow, could he have made himself heard above the din.
Something hit him a terrific blow on the forehead. He was dazed. He staggered back, feeling for his senses. He wondered vaguely who had hit him and what he had been hit with. Probably a heavy book.... The pain seemed momentarily to quench his anger, so that he thought: This is not ordinary "ragging." They hate me. They detest me. They want to hurt me if they can.... He felt no anger for them now, only the dreadfulness of being hated so much by so many people at once.
He must escape somehow. They might kill him in the dark there if they found him. He suddenly made his decision and plunged headlong down the centre aisle towards the door. How many boys he knocked down or trampled on or struck with his swinging arms as he rushed past he never knew, but in another moment he was outside, with the cool air of the cloisters tingling across his bruised head and the pandemonium in the Hall sounding suddenly distant in his ears.
In the cloisters he met the Head, walking quickly along with gown flying in the wind.
In front of Speed he stopped, breathless and panting. "Um—um—what is the matter, Mr. Speed? Such an—um—terrible noise—I could—um—hear it at my dinner-table—and—um—yourself—what has happened to you? Are you ill? Your head is covered with—um—blood.... What is all the commotion about?"
Speed said, with crisp clearness: "Go up into the Hall and find out."
And he rushed away from the Head, through the echoing cloisters, and into Lavery's. He washed here, in the public basins, and tied a handkerchief round the cut on his forehead. He did not disturb Helen, but left his gown on one of the hooks in the cloak-room and went out again into the dark and sheltering night, hatless and coatless, and with fever in his heart. The night was bitterly cold, but he did not feel it; he went into the town by devious ways, anxious to avoid being seen; when he was about half-way the parish clock chimed eight. He felt his head; his handkerchief was already damp on the outside; it must have been a deep cut.
IV
"Mr. Speed!" she said, full of compassion. A tiny lamp in the corridor illumined his bandaged head as he walked in. "What on earth has happened to you? Can you walk up all right?"
"Yes," he answered, with even a slight laugh. The very presence of her gave him reassurance. He strode up the steps into the sitting-room and stood in front of the fire. She followed him and stared at him for a moment without speaking. Then she said, almost unconcernedly: "Now you mustn't tell me anything till you've been examined. That looks rather a deep cut. Now sit down in that chair and let me attend to you. Don't talk."