'' The sharpened instinct of cowardice
lit up the situation to him in one swift flash. The blood
roared and surged to his head as though thousands of
floodgates had been opened in his veins and arteries, and
his brain was the common sluice in which all the torrents
met. He saw nothing but a blur around him. Then the blood
ebbed away in quick waves, till his very heart seemed
drained and empty, and he stood nervelessly, helplessly,
dumbly watching the child, bearing its accursed burden with
slow, relentless steps nearer and nearer to the group that
waited sheep-like to receive him. A fascinated curiosity
compelled Lester to turn his head towards the fugitives; the
cab had started at hot pace in the direction of the station.
The next moment Lester was running, running faster than
any of those present had ever seen a man run, and---he was
not running away. For that stray fraction of his life some
unwonted impulse beset him, some hint of the stock he came
from, and he ran unflinchingly towards danger. He stooped
and clutched at the Easter egg as one tries to scoop up the
ball in Rugby football. What he meant to do with it he had
not considered, the thing was to get it.
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