Was it possible that she had committed some crime, and they were detectives? Surely this adventure was a strange and mysterious one.
“Remain here,” I exclaimed quickly. “I’ll go out and prepare the car. When all is ready, I will keep watch while you and the boy slip out.”
I went forth into the pelting rain, took off the rugs from the seats, and started the motor. Then returning, and finding no one in the passage—the two men having evidently passed on into the tap-room—I beckoned to her, and she and the lad stole softly along and out into the roadway.
In a moment they were both in the car, and a few seconds later we were tearing along the broad road out of Stilton village at a pace that might have cost me a five-pound fine.
What was the forthcoming “sensation”? Why was she flying from the two strangers?
She feared we might be followed, therefore I decided to drive her to Peterborough. We tore on through the biting wind and driving rain, past Water Newton and Orton, until we drew up at the Great Northern Station at Peterborough, where she descended, and for a moment held my hand in a warm grasp of heartfelt thankfulness.
“You must thank this gentleman,” she said to the lad. “Recollect that to-night he has saved your life. They meant to kill you.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the little lad simply, holding out his hand.
When they had gone I remounted and drove away to Barnack, utterly dumbfounded. The fair stranger, whoever she was, held me in fascination. Never in all my life had I met a woman possessed of such perfect grace and such exquisite charm. She had fled from her enemies. What startling event had occurred that evening to cause her and the lad to take to the road so ill-prepared?
What was the “sensation” which she had prophesied on the morrow? I longed for day to dawn, when I might learn the truth.