The road, after the habit of country roads, wound and twisted.  The quarry was frequently out of sight.  And Percy’s anxiety was such that, every time Maud vanished, he broke into a gallop.  Another hundred yards, and the blister no longer consented to be ignored.  It cried for attention like a little child, and was rapidly insinuating itself into a position in the scheme of things where it threatened to become the centre of the world.  By the time the third bend in the road was reached, it seemed to Percy that this blister had become the one great Fact in an unreal nightmare-like universe.  He hobbled painfully:  and when he stopped suddenly and darted back into the shelter of the hedge his foot seemed aflame.  The only reason why the blister on his left heel did not at this juncture attract his entire attention was that he had become aware that there was another of equal proportions forming on his right heel.

Percy had stopped and sought cover in the hedge because, as he rounded the bend in the road, he perceived, before he had time to check his gallop, that Maud had also stopped.  She was standing in the middle of the road, looking over her shoulder, not ten yards away.  Had she seen him?  It was a point that time alone could solve.  No!  She walked on again.  She had not seen him.  Lord Belpher, by means of a notable triumph of mind over matter, forgot the blisters and hurried after her.

They had now reached that point in the road where three choices offer themselves to the wayfarer.  By going straight on he may win through to the village of Moresby-in-the-Vale, a charming little place with a Norman church; by turning to the left he may visit the equally seductive hamlet of Little Weeting; by turning to the right off the main road and going down a leafy lane he may find himself at the door of Platt’s farm.  When Maud, reaching the cross-roads, suddenly swung down the one to the left, Lord Belpher was for the moment completely baffled.  Reason reasserted its way the next minute, telling him that this was but a ruse.  Whether or no she had caught sight of him, there was no doubt that Maud intended to shake off any possible pursuit by taking this speciously innocent turning and making a detour.  She could have no possible motive in going to Little Weeting.  He had never been to Little Weeting in his life, and there was no reason to suppose that Maud had either.

The sign-post informed him—­a statement strenuously denied by the twin-blisters—­that the distance to Little Weeting was one and a half miles.  Lord Belpher’s view of it was that it was nearer fifty.  He dragged himself along wearily.  It was simpler now to keep Maud in sight, for the road ran straight:  but, there being a catch in everything in this world, the process was also messier.  In order to avoid being seen, it was necessary for Percy to leave the road and tramp along in the deep ditch which ran parallel to it.  There is nothing half-hearted about these ditches