The afternoon went slowly by. The sky became overcast, and there was a slight shower, but we did not pull up, tearing ever onward through Chard, over the Devonshire border and round the big hill of Dumpdon to old-fashioned but unpicturesque Honiton.
We had now only seventeen miles or so before reaching Exeter. Slowly we descended the main street which dropped very steeply to a bridge over a small stream, and then out again upon the broad white undulating road, fringed almost continuously by trees and whitewashed and thatched cottages—the main road that runs from London through Hounslow to the west.
Suddenly we dipped beneath a railway bridge, and the road rising again our eager eyes saw about a mile in front of us a travelling cloud of dust. As we looked the car before us went round a slight bend in the flat open road, and there showed a flash of bright blue.
“Look!” cried Gibbs excitedly, “that’s the car! We must overtake them,” and setting his teeth again he put on all speed possible.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, we seemed to be overtaking my fugitive love who was, of course, all unconscious of being followed, when, just as we ran over the bridge which crosses the Clyst, there was a loud report like a pistol shot, and Gibbs was compelled to instantly apply the brake, uttering a loud exclamation of disappointment and chagrin.
Our off rear tyre had burst!
My love would be in Exeter and beyond reach long before we could put on a new tube and tyre.
I stood watching the fast receding car, my heart sinking within me. Ella was before my very eyes, escaping me—never to return.
I knew that the intention was to evade me in future. And yet how madly I loved her. No matter what she said or what she did, she was still mine—mine!