“She’ll kill me,” he whispered breathlessly.

“I can’t help it,” said Crippen, shaking him off.  “Serve you right.”

“And she’ll tell the folks outside, and they’ll kill you,” continued Pepper.

The captain sat down again, and confronted him with a face as pale as his own.

“The last train leaves at eight,” whispered the pilot hurriedly.  “It’s desperate, but it’s the only thing you can do.  Take her for a stroll up by the fields near the railway station.  You can see the train coming in for a mile off nearly.  Time yourself carefully, and make a bolt for it.  She can’t run.”

The entrance of their victim with the tea-tray stopped the conversation; but the captain nodded acceptance behind her back, and then, with a forced gaiety, sat down to tea.

For the first time since his successful appearance he became loquacious, and spoke so freely of incidents in the life of the man he was impersonating that the ex-pilot sat in a perfect fever lest he should blunder.  The meal finished, he proposed a stroll, and, as the unsuspecting Mrs. Pepper tied on her bonnet, slapped his leg, and winked confidently at his fellow-conspirator.

“I’m not much of a walker,” said the innocent Mrs. Pepper, “so you must go slowly.”

The captain nodded, and at Pepper’s suggestion left by the back way, to avoid the gaze of the curious.

For some time after their departure Pepper sat smoking, with his anxious face turned to the clock, until at length, unable to endure the strain any longer, and not without a sportsmanlike idea of being in at the death, he made his way to the station, and placed himself behind a convenient coal-truck.

He waited impatiently, with his eyes fixed on the road up which he expected the captain to come.  He looked at his watch.  Five minutes to eight, and still no captain.  The platform began to fill, a porter seized the big bell and rang it lustily; in the distance a patch of white smoke showed.  Just as the watcher had given up all hope, the figure of the captain came in sight.  He was swaying from side to side, holding his hat in his hand, but doggedly racing the train to the station.

“He’ll never do it!” groaned the pilot.  Then he held his breath, for three or four hundred yards behind the captain Mrs. Pepper pounded in pursuit.

The train rolled into the station; passengers stepped in and out; doors slammed, and the guard had already placed the whistle in his mouth, when Captain Crippen, breathing stentorously, came stumbling blindly on to the platform, and was hustled into a third class carriage.

“Close shave that, sir,” said the station-master as he closed the door.

The captain sank back in his seat, fighting for breath, and turning his head, gave a last triumphant look up the road.

“All right, sir,” said the station-master kindly, as he followed the direction of the other’s eyes and caught sight of Mrs. Pepper.  “We’ll wait for your lady.”