Then he looked at the window.
He was gone before any of them understood what he meant to do. Not out of the window — through the door, past Miss Penhallow, so close that she flinched and the poker swung uselessly at empty air; then his boots on the uncarpeted stair, a crash and a cry as Miss Peverell was flung against the wall, the green door banging, and a moment later the clatter of hooves on cobbles and a man's voice cursing a horse.
Jasper reached the window in time to see the chestnut go plunging up the lane toward the market place, with Saltash low on its neck and his fair hair flying.
He turned for the door.
"No."
Imogen had not moved. She stood in the middle of the wrecked schoolroom with ink spreading round her shoes and her hand still flat over the paper at her breast, and she looked at him.
"Let him go," she said.
"He'll get away. He'll be in Bristol by dark. The *Amity* sails Saturday, he said so himself—"
"Then let someone else catch him. You've sent for a magistrate, haven't you? You were always so good at sending for people." Her voice cracked, very slightly, and steadied. "That horse is ridden to death. He'll not get beyond Easton. Let him go, Jasper." She drew a long breath. "You chose once before which of us to go after. Don't — please don't choose him again."
He stood at the door with his hand on the frame.
He thought of the hall at Kelmscott, seven years ago, and a girl in a blue riding habit saying *Jasper, please*. He thought of a letter lying on a silver salver on his father's desk, with her handwriting on the cover, and his father's dry voice saying *You will write Refused upon it, and you will return it, and you will not speak of it again.* He thought of how he had picked up the pen.
He took his hand off the door frame.