“Why, Gunner Barling,” he cried, “I didn’t know you! How on earth do you come to be in this state?”
The man looked shamefacedly down on the ground.
“I’m a deserter, sir!” he said in a low voice.
“Are you, by George?” replied Desmond, “and now I come to think of it, so am I!”
CHAPTER XXV.
TO MRS. MALPLAQUET’S
Clasping Barbara’s wrist in a bony grip, Mrs. Malplaquet sat at the girl’s side in the back seat of the limousine whilst Bellward placed himself on the seat opposite. The car was powerfully engined; and, once the cart track up to the inn was passed and the main road reached, Strangwise opened her out.
By the track leading to the inn the high road made a right angle turn to the right. This turn they took, leaving the Mill House away in the distance to the left of them, and, after skirting the fen for some way and threading a maze of side roads, presently debouched on a straight, broad road.
Dazed and shaken by her experiences, Barbara lost all count of time, but after running for some time through the open country in the gray light of dawn, they reached the edge of those long tentacles of bricks and mortar which London thrusts out from her on every side. The outer fringes of the metropolis were still sleeping as the great car roared by. The snug “High Streets,” the red brick “Parades” and “Broadways,” with their lines of houses with blinds drawn, seemed to have their eyes shut, so blank, so somnolent was their aspect.
With their lamps alight, the first trams were gliding out to begin the new day, as the big car swiftly traversed the eastern suburbs of London. To Barbara, who had had her home at Seven Kings, there was something familiar about the streets as they flickered by; but her powers of observation were dulled, so great was the sense of helplessness that weighed her down.
High-booted scavengers with curious snake-like lengths of hose on little trolleys were sluicing the asphalt as the limousine snorted past the Mansion House into Poultney and Cheapside. The light was growing clearer now; the tube stations were open and from time to time a motor-bus whizzed by.