And then came a terrible thing. In places
the road became hard, in places were the crowded indentations of
a recent flock of sheep, and at last in the throat of the town
cobbles and the stony streets branching east, west, north, and
south, at a stone cross under the shadow of the cathedral the
tracks vanished. "O Cricky!" said Mr. Hoopdriver, dismounting in
dismay and standing agape. "Dropped anything?" said an inhabitant
at the kerb. "Yes," said Mr. Hoopdriver, "I've lost the spoor,"
and walked upon his way, leaving the inhabitant marvelling what
part of a bicycle a spoor might be. Mr. Hoopdriver, abandoning
tracking, began asking people if they had seen a Young Lady in
Grey on a bicycle. Six casual people hadn't, and he began to feel
the inquiry was conspicuous, and desisted. But what was to be
done?
Hoopdriver was hot, tired, and hungry, and full of the first
gnawings of a monstrous remorse. He decided to get himself some
tea and meat, and in the Royal George he meditated over the
business in a melancholy frame enough. They had passed out of his
world--vanished, and all his wonderful dreams of some vague,
crucial interference collapsed like a castle of cards. What a
fool he had been not to stick to them like a leech! He might have
thought! But there!--what WAS the good of that sort of thing now?
He thought of her tears, of her helplessness, of the bearing of
the other man in brown, and his wrath and disappointment surged
higher. "What CAN I do?" said Mr.
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