“Seventy-two miles,” said the chauffeur, who knew his roads out of London.
“And what time does the boat leave?”
A light irradiated his face, and he swore volubly.
“We can do it!” he shouted. “By the Lord, we can do it! Are you game?”
Game? The light that leaped to her eyes was sufficient answer. He tore open the door of the cab, roaring to the driver:
“Round that corner to the right—quick—then into the mews at the back!”
Within two minutes the Mercury was attracting the attention of the police as it whirled through the traffic towards Westminster Bridge. Dale’s face was set like a block of granite. He had risked a good deal in leaving his master at the point of death at Calais; he was now risking more, far more, in rushing back to Calais again without having discharged the duty which had dragged him from that master’s bedside. But he thought he had secured the best physician London could bring to the sufferer’s aid, and the belief sustained him in an action that was almost heroic. He was a simple-minded fellow, with a marked taste for speed in both animals and machinery, but he had hit on one well-defined trait in human nature when he decided that if a man is dying for the sake of a woman the presence of that woman may cure when all else will fail.