“But what about my pair of gloves?”
“Oh, you're a hard man, reaping where you have not sowed and gathering——”
“There, then, we're quits,” said Drake, leaning over from the box seat and snatching a kiss of her. It was now clear that he had been drinking a good deal.
V.
Before the race had been run, a solitary man with a dog at his heels had crossed the Downs on his way back to the railway station. Jealousy and rage possessed his heart between them, but he would not recognise these passions; he believed his emotions to be horror and pity and shame. John Storm had seen Glory on the race-course, in Drake's company, under Drake's protection: he proud and triumphant, she bright and gay and happy.
“O Lord, help me! Help me, O Lord!”
“And now, dragging along the road, in his mind's eye he saw her again as the victim of this man, his plaything, his pastime to takeup or leave—no better than any of the women about her, and where they were going she would go also. Some day he would find her where he had found others—outcast, deserted, forlorn, lost; down in the trough of life, a thing of loathing and contempt!
“O Lord, help her! Help her, O Lord!”