Amaryllis shook her head.
"I thought I'd given him a five-minute dose at least," said Dick on the threshold, and taking her left elbow in his hand, began to run. "We've got to grease like hell. It's a mile and a half to my car."
They were half-way to the pretentious gate, and Amaryllis was already distressed by the pace, when they heard behind them the thud of a revolver. A twig with two leaves, cut from a branch above and beyond them, fell into the road. Dick increased his pace, so that Amaryllis was only kept from falling by his firm hold of her arm.
A second shot hit the drive behind them, spraying their backs with gravel.
"High. Low, to left—jump!" yelled Dick, swinging the girl leftward past his body with a force so sudden that she fell on the grass at the roadside, in the shelter of an artificial knoll covered with shrubs; and this time Dick heard the bullet close on his right.
He threw himself on the grass, sharing her cover.
"All right?" he asked.
Speechless for lack of breath, Amaryllis nodded, trying to smile.
"You can't run to the gate," he said, rather as if speaking to himself than to her. "Wind's gone already, and it's a hundred yards without cover. To the bank of the road's only about twenty-five. Breathe deep. Is my cap in that pocket still?"
Amaryllis found and gave it to him. Dick, unrolling it, rose slowly to his knees, facing the rhododendron bush.