examined the silver cups on the top of the bookshelf, one by one. There were seven; all were for winning the mile; it was his old distance from Avenue Lodge to the hollow tree in the fields, between the Finchley Road and Haverstock Hill. Tom remembered his master’s anger, inexplicable no longer, on the day he cleaned the cups. He jumped down and was looking at the inscription on the clock when it struck eleven in his face.
Tom clapped his hand to his head.
“We shall be too late!”
“Too late wot for?”
“She will be married to a murderer. And I forgot that. God forgive me! God forgive me!” He reeled into the verandah. “No—no—there is one chance. The ring—the ring! This way for your life!”
CHAPTER XL
MADNESS AND CRIME
The pair dashed to the stables: by seven minutes past eleven the curricle cleared the gate-posts, with Tom driving furiously and Wyeth seated grimly at his side. At twenty past they turned into Macquarie Street, were rattling up Hunter Street next minute, then into George Street—the whip whistling—a wheel on the curb at every corner—pedestrians flying and constables challenging—and so up Charlotte Place to the church. The clock on the round castellated tower made it 11.24: time yet if they had waited for the ring. But there were no carriages outside, and Tom’s heart stopped as he saw a woman emerge and lock the church door behind her.
