Then he sank the faggot of wood and iron in a distant
corner of the basin.
"There!" he said. "Now you understand. Nothing's happened except that a
furniture van's run off and fallen into the canal owing to the men's
carelessness. We can settle the rest later--I mean about the rent and so
on."
They looked at each other.
Her skirts were nearly dry. Her nose showed no trace of bleeding, but
there was a bluish lump over her left eye. Save that he was hatless, and
that his trousers clung, he was not utterly unpresentable.
They were alone in the silent dawn.
"You'd better go home by Acre Lane, not up Brougham Street," he said.
"I'll come in during the morning."
It was a parting in which more was felt than said.
They went one after the other through the devastated gateway, baptising
the path as they walked. The Town Hall clock struck three as Denry crept
up his mother's stairs. He had seen not a soul.
IV
The exact truth in its details was never known to more than two
inhabitants of Bursley. The one thing clear certainly appeared to be
that Denry, in endeavouring to prevent a runaway pantechnicon from
destroying the town, had travelled with it into the canal.
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