He chose a road which instantly he saw to be
no road. Too late. He pitched, this time not to recover. "A river--a
river-bed!" was his horrified thought. Down went the nose of the car
before him, the steering-wheel hitting him in the chest. Down came Fanny
and all her black thoughts against the glass at his back. The car had
not fallen very far; it had slid forward into a snow-lined dyke, and
remained, resting on its radiator, its front wheels thrust into the
steep walls of the bank, its back wheels in the air. Alfred climbed down
from a seat which had lost its seating power; Fanny opened the door and
stepped from the black interior into the deep snow. The front lamps were
extinguished and buried in the opposite bank, the little red light at
the back shone upwards to heaven.
"Well--"
"Well!"
"Are you hurt?"
"Not at all. And you?"
"Not a bit."
Their cold relations did not seem one whit changed from what they had
been in the inn. Nothing had intervened but a little reflection, a
little effort, and a vigorous jerk. Why should they change? They stood
side by side in the noisy violence of the storm, and one shouted to the
other: "Can you get her out!" and the other answered, "No."
"I will walk on to the river."
"You would never find it."
The truth of this she saw as she looked round.
Alfred left her and descending into the dyke, went on his knees by the
radiator and fumbled deep in the snow with his hand.
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