“They’re coming.... They’re coming,” she said in a hushed voice.
“Yes. They’re coming; and we must be doing, or else they’ll come upstairs and find you here,” he said calmly.
As he spoke he snatched up her hat from the toilet table, put it on his head, pulled down the brim a little and tied the strings under his chin to hide yet more of his face. Then he gave her his final instructions.
“I’m going to clear the way for you,” he said. “As soon as it is clear, you will walk quietly along the road to the farm-yard where your carriage is waiting. Get into it, and see that Leonard has the reins in his hands.”
“But what about you?” she said.
“I’ll be with you in twenty minutes.”
“But suppose they arrest you?”
“They won’t arrest me, or you either,” he said confidently. “But no hurry, mind you. Don’t run down the road. Keep cool.”
He stepped to the window and leaned out of it. The four men were on the point of entering the house. He slipped over the sill and dropped into the garden, uttered a cry as if he had just caught sight of them, and dashed off at full speed.
They yelled with one voice.