THE TORCH. 
385 
We wanted to make a protest before all 
Great. Britain, and in the face of the Cabinet 
Ministers, and Melcombe would do that 
just splendidly. 
We left the cottage about nine o’clock. 
We thought we ought to be able to ride 
sixteen miles in two hours, and so ought to 
get to Melcombe about eleven, hour 
miles an hour was more like the rate we went. 
I will say nothing 
about our mis- 
adventures by 
the way, but it 
was past mid- 
night when we 
got to Melcombe, 
and Leila was 
absolutely done 
up. I had had a 
side-slip coming 
down a hill, and 
had a feeling 
that I w a s 
covered with 
mud. When a 
woman has made 
up her mind 
upon a subject 
she is not to be 
moved. Ilad we 
not been so per- 
meated by a con- 
sciousness of 
the greatness 
and justice of 
our Cause I 
tremble to 
think what 
would have hap- 
pened when we 
got to Melcombe. 
When Leila got 
off her machine 
and had to lean 
against a gate 
to help her to stand, and found that she 
had left that tin in the ditch skirting the 
common into which she had wandered instead 
of keeping to the road, I believe it would 
have needed very little to make her cry. I 
really could have used bad words to her — 
only a woman never does forget herself in 
the way which is habitual with a man. You 
should hear Sam Griffiths- — however, 1 was 
very much annoyed with Leila, and Sam 
Griffiths is a person of whom I do not intend 
to have an opinion of any sort or kind. 
The attitude Leila took up amazed me. 
“ If you want your old tin, Sally,” she 
observed, after T had been making a few 
plain remarks, “ you had better go and get it. 
So far as I’m concerned we shall have to 
manage with what we’ve got. I’m not going 
to look for it — I’m nearly dead.” 
So I had to go and look for it myself — 
the tin which she had lost ; it was of no con- 
sequence if I also should be nearly dead. As 
a matter of fact. I was pretty tired, and when 
I had gone a 
little way, and 
Leila was out of 
sight, I do not 
mind admitting 
that I did not 
like it at all. It 
was so terribly 
lonely. 
People who 
live in towns 
have no idea how 
dark it can be 
in the country, 
especially in an 
open place. The 
darkness shut 
me in like a wall. 
Where was that 
wretched tin ? I 
knew I should 
never find it. 
What were we 
to do ? 
Then it began 
to rain — quite 
fast. And all of 
a sudden 1 heard 
something which 
made me posi- 
tively jump. 
It sounds 
ridiculous, I 
know, but I was 
i n r a t h e r a 
jumpy state. The 
absurd part of it was that I did not know 
what I had heard. It sounded like the noise 
which some people make when they clear their 
throat. The idea that someone might be 
close at hand, whom I could not see, was 
dreadful. 
1 had turned the bicycle round when some- 
thing happened which nearly made me scream. 
I ran against the tin which Leila had dropped. 
What is more, 1 nearly fell over it. My heart 
went into my mouth. If it had been the sort 
of bomb one reads about it would certainly 
have exploded. I kicked it with such force 
that I sent it rolling along the road, and there 
