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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Flyers, by George Barr McCutcheon
+(#5 in our series by George Barr McCutcheon)
+
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Flyers
+
+Author: George Barr McCutcheon
+
+Release Date: June, 2004  [EBook #5848]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 13, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE FLYERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team.
+
+
+
+THE FLYERS
+
+BY GEORGE BARR MCCUTCHEON
+
+Author of "Graustark"
+"Beverly of Graustark" etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAP.
+
+  I. THE FARAWAY CLUB
+ II. THE FLYERS CATCH THE FLYER
+III. THE MORNING AFTER
+ IV. MRS. VAN TRUDER INTRUDES
+  V. AS NIGHT APPROACHES
+ VI. THE ROAD TO PARADISE
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Anne Courtenay ..... Frontispiece
+
+Eleanor was still sitting. . . stiff and silent
+
+Seated side by side. . . two miserable partners in the fiasco
+
+Windomshire
+
+"Hush, Joe, I LOVE it," she cried
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE FARAWAY CLUB
+
+
+A cold, thick drizzle, blown by a biting wind that sent chills to the
+marrow, marred the early spring night, and kept indoors the few hardy
+members who had haunted the clubhouse since the season's opening a
+week before. Not more than a dozen loyal devotees to the sports of the
+open air lounged about the big clubhouse. Three or four rangy young
+women in sweaters and jackets strove bravely to dispel the gloom of
+the night as it settled down upon the growling masculine majority. The
+club steward hovered near, anxiously directing the movements of a
+silent and as yet undrilled corps of servants who flitted from group
+to group with decanters and checks, taking and mistaking orders with
+the usual abandon. A huge fireplace threw out heat sufficient to make
+the big lounging room comfortable. Now and then a spiteful gust of
+wind swept the rain against the western window-panes with a menace
+that set the teeth on edge.
+
+"Rotten night," reflected the big man who monopolised the roomiest
+chair and the best position in front of the blazing logs. "Going to
+town to-night?" The question was general: there were half a dozen
+answers. Every one was going in by the last express. All of them had
+dined well: they had been hungry and the club was a wealthy one; even
+the most exclusive of appetites could be entertained at the Faraway
+Country Club. The last 'bus was to leave the clubhouse at ten minutes
+past ten, and it was then half-past eight. Ten minutes' drive from the
+clubhouse on the edge of the little town to the railway station--then
+thirty minutes to the heart of the big city in which the members lived
+and died at great risk to themselves.
+
+Each succeeding spring saw the formal opening of the Faraway Country
+Club. The boards were pulled down from the windows and the door hinges
+were oiled properly after a winter of discontent. May saw the
+reopening, but it was not until June that crowds began to fill the
+house and grounds. Only the more restless and hardy had the temerity
+to test the pleasures of the raw spring days and nights. The M.F.H.
+was a loyal, eager chap; he knew what was required of him in his
+official capacity. With the first symptoms of softening soil he led
+his followers through field and wood, promising the "real hunt" inside
+of a month. Following a pack of overfed hounds was what every one at
+Faraway Club called a "real hunt."
+
+The night so meagrely described at the beginning of this tale followed
+hard upon a grey, chill day. A few golfers had spent the afternoon
+upon the course, inanely cursing the temporary tees and greens. A
+couple of polo enthusiasts tried out their ponies, and several men and
+women took their hunters over the course, that fairly bristled with
+spectres of last year's anise-seed. Now they were comfortably
+ensconced in the clubhouse, berating the unfortunate elements, and
+waiting for the last express with a persistency which allowed three or
+four earlier trains to come and go unnoticed. The cheerful highball
+was coming into its own. A stern winter of bridge had not killed the
+ardour of certain worshippers; continuous criticism of play arose from
+the table in the corner where two men and two women were engaged with
+the cards.
+
+The perennial bore, who noses into everything in order to sniff his
+own wit, sauntered amiably from group to group, pouring out jests as
+murky as the night itself. He saw none of the scowls nor heard the
+toe-taps; he went blithely along his bridgeless way.
+
+"I say, Brown, I saw your wife on the street yesterday, but she didn't
+see me," he observed to the blase-looking man in corduroys.
+
+"Ya-as," returned the other, calmly staring past him; "so she told me
+last night." The bore and his blissful smile passed on to the next
+group. There, two or three women were chatting with as many men,
+yawning and puffing at their cigarettes, bored by the risque stories
+the men were telling, but smiling as though they had not already heard
+them from other men. Occasional remarks, dropped softly into the ears
+of the women, may have brought faint blushes to their cheeks, but the
+firelight was a fickle consort to such changes. The sly turn of a
+sentence gave many a double meaning; the subtle glance of the eye
+intended no harm. Dobson's new toast to "fair women" earned a roar of
+laughter, but afterwards Dobson was called to account by a husband who
+realised. A man over in the corner was thumping aimlessly on the
+piano; a golf fanatic was vigorously contending that he had driven 243
+yards against the wind; a tennis enthusiast was lamenting the fact
+that the courts were too soft to be used; there was a certain odour of
+rain-soaked clothes in the huge room, ascendant even above the smell
+of cigarettes. Altogether, it was a night that owed much to the
+weather.
+
+Mrs. Scudaway, dashing horsewoman and exponent of the free rein, was
+repeating the latest story concerning an intimate friend of every one
+present--and, consequently, absent.
+
+"She's just sailed for Europe, and that good-looking actor friend of
+the family happened to go on the same steamer," she was saying with a
+joyous smile.
+
+"Accidents will happen," remarked some one, benevolently.
+
+"Where's her husband? I haven't seen him with her in months," came
+from one of the men.
+
+"Oh, they have two children, you know," explained Mrs. Scudaway.
+
+"Delicate, I hear," said Miss Ratliff.
+
+"Naturally; he nurses them," said Mrs. Scudaway, blowing smoke half-
+way across the room through her delicate nostrils.
+
+"I say, Mrs. Scudaway," cried the rapt bore, "don't you ever do
+anything but inhale?"
+
+"Yes, I exhale occasionally. No, thanks," as he held forth an ash
+tray. Then she flecked the ashes into the fireplace, ten feet away.
+
+"Good Lord, it's a rotten night!" repeated the big man, returning
+dismally from a visit to the window. "There's a beastly fog mixed in
+with the rain."
+
+"Better blow the fog horn for Henderson," said Ratliff, with a jerk of
+his thumb. "He's half seas over already and shipping a lot of water."
+Henderson, the convivial member, was on his third siphon.
+
+"I don't care a whoop what McAlpine says," roared an irascible
+gentleman on the opposite side of the fireplace; "a man ought to use a
+midiron when he gets that kind of a lie. Nobody but an ass would take
+a brassie. He's---"
+
+"Just listen to that blethering idiot," said young Rolfe to the lady
+beside him. "He ought to be choked."
+
+"I like the way you speak of my husband," she responded gaily.
+
+"Oh, I forgot. He is your husband, isn't he?" Then, after a moment's
+easy contemplation of the pretty young woman and a scornful glance at
+the golfer: "Lucky, but a very poor watchdog."
+
+"He barks beautifully," resented the young wife, with a loyal grimace.
+
+"That's why you're not afraid of him," he said quickly.
+
+"Don't you think he'd bite?"
+
+"They never do."
+
+"Well, you just try him, that's all," remarked the young wife coldly,
+rising and moving away, a touch of red in her cheeks.
+
+"I will," he sang out genially, as he crossed his legs and stretched
+his feet out to the fire. She looked back with a mirthless smile on
+her lips.
+
+The man at the piano struck up the insidious "La Mattchiche,"
+suggestive of the Bal Tabarin and other Fourteenth of July devotions.
+
+"Don't play that, Barkley," complained the big man, as every one began
+beating time to the fascinating air. "I'm trying to forget Paris."
+
+"Can you ever forget that night in Maxim's---" began Mrs. Scudaway.
+
+"I recall the next day more vividly," he interrupted.
+
+"Changing the subject," inserted the amiable bore, his moon-face
+beaming, "I see that the Thursdales have opened their place across the
+ravine. Isn't it rather early for them to leave town for the summer?"
+
+"They come out every year about this time."
+
+"Lot of people will be opening their places next week. I saw Mrs.
+Gorgus to-day. She says they're putting her house in shape---"
+
+"Impossible!" cried Mrs. Tanner. "It hasn't any shape."
+
+"The only thing that could put the Gorgus house in shape is an
+earthquake. Who was the architect of that abortion?" demanded Rolfe.
+
+"Denison. He's an impressionist."
+
+"The Thursdales have a new French car. Have you seen it? Eleanor ran
+over here in it this afternoon with her Englishman. Showing off both
+of her novelties at once, d'ye see?" said Carter, the tennis player.
+
+"I understand the thing's a go--sure go," said the big man. "In the
+fall some time. He's a rather decent chap, too."
+
+"And, what's better, if his brother and his cousin should happen to
+die, he'll be a duke."
+
+"If they're as healthy as he seems to be, there'll be nothing doing
+for him."
+
+A good-looking young fellow, who had been staring at the fire all
+evening, moved uneasily in his lounging chair. Several quick glances
+were sent to where he sat moodily apart from the others, and then
+surreptitious winks and nudges were exchanged.
+
+"Joe is as crazy in love with her as ever, poor devil," whispered
+Rolfe. Gradually the group of gossips came closer together over the
+table top; the conversation was continued in more subdued tones.
+
+"They're discussing me, damn 'em," said the moody young man to
+himself. "I suppose they're pitying me. Damn cats! But I'll show 'em a
+thing or two they're not looking for before long." He looked at his
+watch for the twentieth time in an hour and scowled at the drenched
+window-panes across the way. For some reason this exceedingly nice-
+looking young man was in a state of extreme nervousness, a condition
+which, luckily for him, he was able to keep within himself.
+
+And this was what Mrs. Scudaway was saying in an urgent undertone to
+the half dozen who leaned across the big table: "Joe is a mighty good
+sort, and I'm sorry for him. He's been good enough for Eleanor
+Thursdale ever since she came out two years ago, and I don't see why
+he should cease being good enough for her now. This Englishman hasn't
+any more money and he isn't half as good looking. He's English, that's
+all. Her mother's crazy to have a look in at some of those London
+functions she's read so much about. She's an awful ass, don't you
+think, Tommy?"
+
+"Ya-as," said the blase man; "such as she is."
+
+"Mighty hard lines, this thing of being an ordinary American,"
+lamented the placid bore.
+
+"One might just as well be called Abraham or Isaac," reflected Carter.
+
+"No romantic young lover would live through the first chapter with
+either of those names," said pretty Miss Ratliff, who read every novel
+that came out.
+
+"Dauntless has been terribly out of humour for the past week or two,"
+said Carter. "He's horribly cut up over the affair,--grouchy as
+blazes, and flocks by himself all the time. That's not like him,
+either."
+
+"He's the sweetest boy I know," commented little Mrs. Tanner, whose
+husband had barked about the midiron.
+
+"I've heard he's the only man you ever really loved," murmured Rolfe,
+close to her ear.
+
+"Nonsense! I've known him all my life," she replied, with quick and
+suspicious resentment.
+
+"Trite phrase," scoffed he. "I'll wager my head that every woman
+living has uttered that same worn expression a hundred times. 'Known
+him all my life!' Ha, ha! It's a stock apology, my dear. Women, good
+and bad, trade under that flag. Please, to oblige me, get a fresh
+excuse."
+
+"The most ignorant duffer in the world could lay you a stymie if---"
+the loud-voiced golfer was complaining just at that instant. The man
+he was addressing was nodding his head politely and at the same time
+trying to hear what was being said at the round table.
+
+"Joe Dauntless is good enough for anybody's daughter," vouchsafed the
+blase man in corduroys.
+
+"He's a ripping good fellow," again said Mrs. Scudaway.
+
+"Mrs. Thursdale's got an English governess for her kids, an English
+butler, an English bull terrier, and a new Cobden-Sanderson binding on
+that antique History of England she talks so much about," observed
+Carter.
+
+"And she's beginning to wear her evening gowns on the street in the
+morning. Besides, her shoes lob over at the heels," remarked the rangy
+Mrs. Carter.
+
+"Yes, she's getting to be thoroughly English. I've noticed a tendency
+to chirp like a bird when she talks, too."
+
+"That governess is a mighty stunning girl, by the way," said Rolfe.
+
+"She's been over here a year, you know," said Mrs. Scudaway, with no
+apparent relevancy.
+
+"Have you heard when Eleanor's engagement is to be announced?" asked
+Miss Ratliff.
+
+"I'm not supposed to tell, but I have it on the best authority that it
+will be announced next week, and the wedding will take place in
+November. I suppose they'll ask Joe Dauntless to be an usher," said
+Mrs. Carter.
+
+"Hello! Joe's gone outside. He must have heard something we said,"
+said Rolfe, setting his highball glass down with a thump.
+
+"Oh, if he had only been educated at Cambridge instead of in
+Cambridge," mourned Mrs. Carter.
+
+It was true that the tall, good-looking Mr. Dauntless had left the
+room, but not because he had heard the comments of his friends. He was
+standing on the wind-swept verandah, peering through the mist toward a
+distant splash of light across the ravine to the right of the club
+grounds. The fog and mist combined to run the many lights of the
+Thursdale windows into a single smear of colour a few shades brighter
+than the darkness from which it protruded. Dauntless's heart was
+inside that vague, impressionistic circle of colour, but his brain was
+very much in evidence on the distant outside. What were the workings
+of that eager brain will soon be revealed--to the reader, at least, if
+not to the occupants of the rain-bound clubhouse.
+
+A word concerning Dauntless. He was the good-looking son of old banker
+Dauntless, who died immediately after his cashier brought ruin to the
+concern of which he was president. This blow fell when his son was in
+his senior year at Harvard. He took his degree, and then, instead of
+the promised trip around the world, he came home and went to work in
+the offices of a big brokerage firm. Everybody knew and liked him. He
+was a steady, earnest worker, and likewise a sportsman of the right
+temperament. Big, fashionable Faraway looked upon him as its most
+gallant member; no one cared to remember that he might have been very
+rich; every one loved him because he had been rich and was worthy in
+spite of that. It was common knowledge that he was desperately in love
+with pretty Eleanor Thursdale, daughter of the eminently fashionable
+and snobbishly aristocratic widow Thursdale, mistress of many millions
+and leader of select hundreds. Moreover, it was now pretty well known
+that Mrs. Thursdale had utterly lost sight of Dauntless in surveying
+the field of desirable husbands for Eleanor. She could see nothing but
+Englishmen, behind whom lurked the historic London drawing-rooms and
+British estates. That is how and why young Windomshire, a most
+delightful Londoner, with prospects and a peerage behind him, came to
+be a guest in her city house, following close upon a long sojourn in
+the Bermudas. HE had been chosen; the battle was over, so far as
+Eleanor's hand was concerned. What matter if Dauntless had her heart?
+
+The object of this indifference and scorn gazed long and hard at the
+blob of light across the ravine. His heart was beating fast, and his
+body tingled with a strange excitement, which made itself manifest in
+a mixture of impatient frowns and prophetic smiles.
+
+"If it wasn't such a beastly night," he was muttering in one breath,
+and, "Still, it's just the sort of a night we want," in the next. He
+was looking at his watch in the light from the window when an
+automobile whizzed up the wet gravel drive and came to a stop in front
+of the club steps. As Dauntless re-entered the house from the
+verandah, a tall young man in a motor coat and goggles came in through
+the opposite door. They paused and looked steadily at each other, then
+nodded briefly. The crowd of loungers glanced at the two men with
+instant curiosity and then breathed easily. The man who was going to
+marry Miss Thursdale and the man who wanted to marry her were
+advancing to shake hands--a trifle awkwardly, perhaps, but more or
+less frankly.
+
+"Rough weather for motoring," remarked Dauntless, nervously.
+Windomshire removed his cap and goggles.
+
+"Beastly. I just ran over for something to warm the inside man. Won't
+you join me?" His voice was pleasant to the ear, his manner easy and
+appealing. He was not so good looking as Dauntless, true, but he had
+the air of a thoroughbred in his make-up--from head to foot.
+
+"Sit down here," called Mrs. Scudaway readily, creating a general
+shift of chairs. The two men hesitated a moment, nervousness apparent
+in both, and then sat down quickly. The Englishman was next Mrs.
+Scudaway. "What were you doing out in the rain?" she asked after the
+order for drinks had been taken.
+
+"Hurrying to get out of it," he said with evasive good humour, "and
+thinking how much nicer your fogs are than ours," he added quickly.
+
+"Anybody come over with you?" asked the bore, agreeably.
+
+"No, they're playing bridge over at Mrs. Thursdale's and that lets me
+out. Beastly headache, too. Got out for a breath of air." The silence
+that followed this observation seemed to call for further
+explanations. "Miss Thursdale retired soon after dinner, wretchedly
+under the weather. That rather left me adrift, don't you know. I'm not
+playing bridge this year."
+
+"You're not? Why not, pray?"
+
+"Chiefly because of last year. My Mercedes came on from New York
+yesterday and I got her out for a spin. Couldn't resist, don't you
+know. She's working beautifully."
+
+"There's one thing about a Mercedes that I don't like--and you don't
+find it in a Panhard. I've got a Panhard and--" Dobson was saying with
+all the arrogance of a motor fiend, when Mrs. Scudaway ruthlessly and
+properly cut him off.
+
+"We know all about your Panhard, Dobby. Don't bother. Is Eleanor
+really ill, Mr. Windomshire?"
+
+"I had it from her own lips, Mrs. Scudaway."
+
+"Oh, you know what I mean. Is it likely to be serious?"
+
+"Really, I can't say. I offered to go and fetch the doctor in my car,
+but she assured me she'd be all right in the morning. What say, Mr.
+Dauntless?"
+
+"I didn't speak, Mr. Windomshire."
+
+"I thought you did." More than one at the table had heard Joe's
+involuntary chuckle.
+
+"I say, Windomshire, what's the name of that pretty governess over at
+Thursdale's?" asked the busy bore. "Saw her this morning."
+
+The Englishman looked down and flecked the ashes from his cigarette
+before answering.
+
+"Miss Courtenay," he responded.
+
+"She's a corking pretty girl." Windomshire went through the
+unnecessary act of flecking ashes again, but said nothing in reply.
+"Are there any more at home like her?" with a fine chuckle in behalf
+of his wit.
+
+"She's of a very good family, I believe," said Windomshire, looking
+about helplessly. Mrs. Scudaway caught the look in his eyes and
+remembered that English gentlemen are not supposed to discuss women
+outside of their own set.
+
+"It must be time for the 'bus," she said. "We're all going in by the
+10.10, Mr. Windomshire."
+
+"Can't I take some of you over to the station in my car?"
+
+"The 'bus is dryer, I think, thank you." She led the way, and the
+other women followed her upstairs. "We'll be down in time," she
+called.
+
+"I'll take some of you men over in Hardy's machine," volunteered
+Dauntless. "I've got it out here this week, while he's east."
+
+"Ain't you going in, Joe?" demanded Rolfe.
+
+"Not to-night. I'm staying overnight with my uncle in Cobberly Road."
+
+"The 'bus is good enough for me. I haven't forgotten how you ran off
+the Peters Bridge last fall," said Carter.
+
+"Hang it, man, he wasn't thinking about bridges that time," said the
+cheerful bore. "There was a girl with him. Elea--Ahem! I say, old man,
+what the devil time is it? Time for the confounded 'bus? Don't want to
+miss the train." He had caught the scowl of warning from Carter and,
+for a wonder, understood.
+
+"By the way," said Windomshire, irrelevantly, "what was the
+disturbance over in O'Brien's Lane this morning? Anybody hurt? I was
+driving the car up Andrews' Hill when I saw the excitement. Couldn't
+make it out. Were all of the horses running away?"
+
+"Running away!" roared the blase man, forgetting his pose for the
+first time. "Running away!" and he broke into a roar of laughter.
+"Why, that was the advance guard of the Faraway Country Club. Good
+Lord, did you see them coming in?"
+
+"My word, they were coming in. But what was the rush? I came over to-
+night to see if any of the women had been hurt. I could have sworn the
+horses were absolutely unmanageable. They were tearing through bushes
+and taking fences they'd never seen before. Egad, I give you my word,
+one of the women took the fence at the south end of the golf course,
+and she didn't turn out for the bunker at No. 7, either. She took it
+like a bird, and straight across the course she flew on a dead line
+for the home green. What the deuce---"
+
+"Sh! Windomshire, it will cost you your life if she hears you. That
+was Mrs. Scudaway. You don't know what happened, so I'll tell you.
+Half a dozen of the women went out with us for a run over the usual
+course. They are among our best and oldest hunters, too. Well, they
+were keeping right up with the men and having a splendid hunt, when
+all of a sudden a real, live fox dashed into view. By gad, sir, he
+started a panic. They'd never seen one in their lives, and they set up
+a howl that went clear to heaven. And they started for home--well, you
+saw 'em on the stretch. It was great! There never has been such riding
+in America. Mrs. Hooper lost her hat in the woods, and Mrs. Graves
+lost part of her habit coming through that break in the hedge over
+there. That skinny Miss Elperson, who never before has had nerve
+enough to jump her horse over the lawn hose, cleared the wall that
+runs along O'Brien's mill,--nobody's ever done it before,--and she
+came in hanging to the horse's mane and yelling like a wild-cat. Gad,
+it was two hours before we got 'em quiet and sent'em to town. They
+thought it was a tiger, I understand, although some of them held out
+for the lion and the hyena. Mrs. Scudaway was game enough to stay and
+enjoy the laugh."
+
+"What became of the fox?" demanded the Englishman, his eyes
+glistening. At that moment the women came trooping down stairs; the
+'bus bell was clanging sleepily.
+
+"The fox? Oh--er--hanged if I know. I--er---"
+
+"Were you riding?"
+
+"Well--er--just a practice run, you know, old man. Er--I say, ladies,
+the 'bus waits!"
+
+Two minutes later the 'bus rolled away in the fog and drizzle, leaving
+Dauntless and Windomshire alone on the steps.
+
+"Good-night," said the Englishman, after an awkward silence.
+
+"Good-night," was the response. Then, following a brief pause, both
+started toward their cars. The next minute they were chugging away, in
+the night and the lights in the clubhouse began to go out.
+
+Two hours later a stealthy figure crept across the Thursdale lawn,
+lurking behind the rose beds and lilac bushes, finally worming its way
+to a dripping but secluded spot under the weather side of the house.
+It was past twelve o'clock, but there were still lights in the front
+part of the big summer-house. Quiet reigned there, however; the noise
+of merry-making came from the servants' quarters overlooking the
+ravine. A handful of gravel left an impatient hand and rattled against
+the second-story window above. Almost instantaneously the window was
+raised and a head came forth.
+
+"Joe?" came a shrill whisper from above.
+
+"What's the matter?" whispered the man below. "I've been waiting out
+there for two hours--well, half an hour, at least. Aren't you coming,
+dear?"
+
+"I can't get out," came in a whispered wail. "I've had my hat on for
+hours, but---"
+
+"Why can't you get out? Good Lord, you just must!"
+
+"They're playing bridge in the front part of the house and the
+servants are having a reunion in the back. Oh, I've been nearly crazy.
+What are we to do? Shall I jump?"
+
+"Don't! Is there no way to sneak out?"
+
+"I'm afraid of being seen. It would give everything away if any one
+saw me in this automobile rigging at this time of night--and in a rain
+like this, too. Oh, dear, dear, I know I shall go mad! You poor
+darling, aren't you wet to the skin? I really couldn't help it. I just
+couldn't be there at 11.30."
+
+"We'll never make that train--never in the world," groaned Dauntless.
+"It's ten miles, and the road's horrible all the way. By Jove, Nell,
+you must get out some way. It's now or never. I've got everything
+fixed."
+
+"Oh, Joe--listen! Do you think you can get a ladder out from under the
+verandah? The painters left them there this morning. Look out for
+paint, dear. Don't make a noise--not a sound. Mr. Windomshire's room
+is just over the porte cochere. For Heaven's sake, don't arouse him."
+
+"Drop your bag down first, dear,--here! I'll catch it."
+
+"I've got to put some things in it first. It isn't quite ready," she
+gasped, darting away from the window.
+
+"'T was ever thus," he muttered in despair. Cautiously he made his way
+to the end of the verandah. A close listener might have heard him
+snarl "damn" more than once as he tugged away at the painters'
+ladders, which had been left there when the rain began. He was a good-
+natured chap, but barking his knuckles, bumping his head, and banging
+his shins, added to the misfortunes that had gone before, were enough
+to demoralise a saint.
+
+He imagined that he was making enough noise to rouse the neighbours
+for blocks around. No time was to be lost in self-commiseration,
+however. He hurriedly dragged out a ladder, which he managed to place
+against the window-sill without accident.
+
+"Here it is," she whispered excitedly. The next instant a heavy object
+dropped at his feet with a crash. "Oh!" she exclaimed with horror, "my
+perfume bottles!"
+
+"Good Lord!" he gasped.
+
+"I thought you were going to catch it. Oh, here's the ladder. Do you
+think I'll fall? Oh, oh!"
+
+"Don't be afraid. Climb out, dear--and hurry!"
+
+She was brave enough in the crisis. While he held the bottom of the
+ladder she scrambled through the window and hurried downward. Before
+she reached the bottom he lifted her from the ladder in his strong
+arms and held her close for a moment.
+
+"Take the ladder down, dearest," she whispered between kisses. "I
+don't want mother to know I left that way--not just yet,--nor Mr.
+Windomshire, either."
+
+"Come this way," he whispered, after replacing the ladder. "I left the
+car just around the corner. Come on, darling, and we'll soon be safe.
+Don't make a noise!"
+
+"Goodness, isn't it dark! What a horrid night! Oh, what's that?"
+
+"Gad, I thought I heard something over there in the croquet ground.
+Sounded like some one mixing it up with a wicket. Quick! Out this
+way!" He had her hand in his, and was rushing ruthlessly through
+flower-beds toward the big gate, her travelling bag banging against
+his knee with the insistence of a hundredweight.
+
+Panting and gasping for breath, they finally floundered into the
+roadway, and dashed off through the muddy surface toward the unseen
+automobile.
+
+She was half fainting with the panic of excitement as he started to
+lift her into the tonneau of the car. "No, no! Please let me sit with
+you in the front seat," she implored. She had her way, and a moment
+later he was up beside her, both wrapped in the oil-cloths, the
+drizzle blowing in their hot faces.
+
+"We're off, thank God!" he whispered joyously, as the car leaped
+forward under his hand.
+
+"I wonder--oh, dear, how I wonder what mamma will say," she was crying
+in his ear.
+
+Dauntless grinned happily as the car shot onward through the blackness
+of the night. Its lanterns were dark and cold, but he knew the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE FLYERS CATCH THE FLYER
+
+
+No one would have recognised either of them had it been possible to
+see them,--so carefully were their heads swathed in their coverings.
+She was veiled and he was goggled, and both of them scrooged down in
+the seat apprehensively. Hardy's car, borrowed in reality for the
+occasion, was performing nobly. It careened through the muddy streets
+of the village with a sturdiness that augured well for the enterprise.
+Out into the country road, scudding northward, it sped. Dauntless
+increased the speed, not to the limit, on account of the fog and
+uncertainty of the road, but enough to add new thrills to the girl who
+crouched beside him. Neither spoke until they were far from the town
+line; the strain was too intense.
+
+"What will everybody say?" she finally cried in his ear--the most
+natural question in the world. "And the newspapers? Oh, dear!"
+
+"You're not weakening, are you?" he cried. "Shall I turn back?"
+
+She was silent for half a mile.
+
+"No," she replied at last, "I couldn't climb UP that ladder. And
+besides--" with a gasp as the car shot over the railroad tracks,--"we
+never could get as good a start as this again."
+
+"Bully for you!" he shouted.
+
+"How far is it to Fenlock, Joe?" she asked, a quaver in her high-
+pitched voice.
+
+"About seven miles. We'll take the short cut through O'Brien's Lane
+and strike Cobberly Road again at the crossroads. Then it will be easy
+going. We'll catch the flyer all right, Nell. Everything's arranged.
+You go into Car 5 and I in Car 7--"
+
+"With a whole car between us? Heavens!"
+
+"It's safest, dear. There might happen to be some one on board who'd
+know us and suspect. Keep your veil down until you get into the berth.
+There's not much danger of any one being up at this time of night, but
+don't take any chances."
+
+"Goodness, isn't it thrilling! And when do we get to Omegon?"
+
+"Little after seven in the morning. My cousin will meet us in a hack
+and drive us straight to the church. His wife will go with us as the
+extra witness. By eight o'clock we'll be married. Derby will be on the
+train with us. He's a full-fledged preacher now, and he'll marry us
+without a whimper."
+
+"Oh," she sighed deliciously, in spite of the jarring of the motor,
+"isn't it nice to have old college chums who can be depended upon?"
+
+"Poor old Windomshire," he laughed in the buoyancy of conquest.
+
+"I don't think he'll---" She stopped.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Care very much," she concluded. He laughed doubtingly.
+
+Mile after mile the car traversed the misty night, jolting over the
+ruts in the lane, taking the hills blindly--driven entirely by the
+hand of Good Luck.
+
+Suddenly the "honk, honk!" of an invisible motor struck upon their
+tense ears, the sound coming from some point ahead in the black,
+narrow lane. Dauntless sat straight and peered ahead, sounding his
+horn sharply.
+
+"I hope no one is coming toward us," he groaned, slowing up sharply.
+"We never can pass in this confounded lane. If we get off into the
+soft ground--Hello! Here he comes--and no lights either! Hey! Look
+out!" He brought his car to an abrupt standstill.
+
+"Where are we, Joe?" she cried.
+
+"Near the crossroads, I'm sure. Curse an idiot that runs around
+without lights on a night like this," he growled, forgetting that his
+own lamps were dark.
+
+Out of the misty blackness loomed another car, directly ahead. It had
+come to a sudden stop not ten feet away. Both cars were tooting their
+horns viciously.
+
+"Where are your lights?" roared Dauntless.
+
+"Where are yours?" came back angrily through the fog.
+
+"Good Lord!" gasped Joe, panic-stricken.
+
+"It's Mr. Windomshire," whispered Eleanor, in consternation.
+
+Before she realised what was happening her companion lifted her bodily
+over the back of the seat and deposited her in the bed of the tonneau.
+
+"Hide, dearest," he whispered. "Get under the storm blankets. He must
+not see you! I'll--I'll bluff it out some way."
+
+"Wha--what is he doing out here in a machine?" she was whispering
+wildly. "He is pursuing us! He has found out!"
+
+In the other car Windomshire--for it was the tall Englishman--was
+hoarsely whispering to some one beside him:
+
+"It's Dauntless! Hang him! What's he doing here?" Then followed a
+hurried scuffling and subdued whispers. A long silence, fraught with
+an importance which the throbbing of the two engines was powerless to
+disturb, followed the mutual discovery. Joe's brain worked the
+quicker. Disguising his voice as best he could, he shouted through the
+fog:
+
+"We can't pass here."
+
+"Is--is this Cobberly Road?" cried Windomshire, striving to obtain
+what he considered the American twang.
+
+"No, it's not. It's O'Brien's Lane."
+
+Then, after a long silence, "Can't you back out?"
+
+"It's rather--I mean sorter risky, mister. I don't know how far I'd
+have to back, doncherknow--er, ahem!"
+
+"The crossroads can't be more than a hundred yards behind you. Where
+are you going?"
+
+"I'm going for--a doctor," called Windomshire, hastily.
+
+"Well, then, we ought not to stand here all night," groaned Joe, his
+ears open to catch the sound of the locomotive's whistle. There was no
+time to be lost.
+
+"I'll--I'll try to back her out," shouted Windomshire. Eleanor
+whispered something shrilly and anxiously from the tonneau, and Joe
+called out instantly:
+
+"Who is ill?"
+
+"Mrs.--Mrs. Smith," replied the other, bravely.
+
+"Good!" exclaimed Dauntless, heartily. Windomshire was not in the
+least annoyed by the lack of sympathy. He began to drive his car
+backward by jerks and jolts, blindly trusting to luck in the effort to
+reach the road which he had passed in his haste a few minutes before.
+Joe was shouting encouragement and pushing slowly forward in his own
+machine. The noise of the engines was deafening.
+
+"Hang it all, man, don't blow your horn like that!" roared Windomshire
+at last, harassed and full of dread. Joe, in his abstraction, was
+sounding his siren in a most insulting manner.
+
+At last Windomshire's wheels struck a surface that seemed hard and
+resisting. He gave a shout of joy.
+
+"Here we are! It's macadam!"
+
+"Cobberly Road," cried Joe. "Back off to the right and let me run in
+ahead. I'm--I'm in a devil of a hurry."
+
+"By Gad, sir, so am I. Hi, hold back there! Look out where you're
+going, confound you!"
+
+"Now for it," cried Joe to Eleanor. "We've got the lead; I'll bet a
+bun he can't catch us." He had deliberately driven across the other's
+bows, as it were, scraping the wheel, and was off over Cobberly Road
+like the wind. "Turn to your right at the next crossing," he shouted
+back to Windomshire. Then to himself hopefully: "If he does that,
+he'll miss Fenlock by three miles."
+
+They had covered two rash, terrifying miles before a word was spoken.
+Then he heard her voice in his ear--an anxious, troubled voice that
+could scarcely be heard above the rushing wind.
+
+"What will we do if the train is late, dear? He'll be--be sure to
+catch us."
+
+"She's never late. Besides, what if he does catch us? We don't have to
+go back, do we? You're of age. Brace up; be a man!" he called back
+encouragingly.
+
+"There are too many men as it is," she wailed, sinking back into the
+tonneau.
+
+"Here we are!" he shouted, as the car whizzed into a murky, dimly
+lighted street on the edge of Fenlock, the county seat. "There are the
+station lights just ahead."
+
+"Is the train in?" she cried, struggling to her feet eagerly.
+
+"I think not." He was slowing down. A moment later the throbbing car
+came to a stop beside the railway station platform. The lights blinked
+feebly through the mist; far off in the night arose the faint toot of
+a locomotive's whistle.
+
+"We're just in time," he cried. "She's coming. Quick!" He lifted her
+bodily over the side of the car, jerked two suitcases from beneath the
+curtains, and rushed frantically to the shelter of the platform sheds.
+
+"I'll leave you here, dear," he was saying rapidly. "Wait a second;
+there is your railroad ticket and your drawing-room ticket, too. I'll
+wake Derby when I get on board. I have to run the automobile down to
+Henry's garage first. Won't take ten seconds. Don't worry. The train
+won't be here for three or four minutes. Get on board and go to sleep.
+I'll be two cars ahead."
+
+"Oh, Joe, won't I see you again before we start?" she cried
+despairingly.
+
+"I'll be back in a minute. It's only half a block to Henry's. All I
+have to do is to leave the car in front of his place. His men will
+look after it. It's all understood, dearest; don't worry. I'll be here
+before the train, never fear. Stand here in the shadow, dear." He gave
+her what might have been a passionate kiss had it not been for the
+intervention of veil and goggles. Then he was off to the motor, his
+heart thumping frantically. Standing as stiff and motionless as a
+statue against the damp brick wall, she heard the automobile leap away
+and go pounding down the street. Apparently she was alone on the
+platform; the ticking of telegraph instruments came to her anxious
+ears, however, and she knew there were living people inside the long,
+low building. The experience certainly was new to this tall, carefully
+nurtured girl. Never before had she been left alone at such an hour
+and place; it goes without saying that the circumstances were unique.
+Here she was, standing alone in the most wretched of nights, her heart
+throbbing with a dozen emotions, her eyes and ears labouring in a new
+and thrilling enterprise, her whole life poised on the social dividing
+line. She was running away to marry the man she had loved for years;
+slipping away from the knot that ambition was trying to throw over her
+rebellious head. If she had any thought of the past or the future,
+however, it was lost among the fears and anxieties of the present. Her
+soul was crying out for the approach of two objects--Joe Dauntless and
+the north-bound flyer.
+
+Her sharp ears caught the sound which told her that the motor had
+stopped down the street; it was a welcome sound, for it meant that he
+was racing back to the station--and just in time, too; the flyer was
+pounding the rails less than half a mile away.
+
+Fenlock was a division point in the railroad. The company's yards and
+the train despatcher's office were located there. A huge round-house
+stood off to the right; half a dozen big headlights glared out at the
+shivering Eleanor like so many spying, accusing eyes. She knew that
+all trains stopped in Fenlock. Joe had told her that the flyer's pause
+was the briefest of any during the day or night; still she wondered if
+it would go thundering through and spoil everything.
+
+Miss Thursdale, watching the approaching headlight, her ears filled
+with the din of the wheels, did not see or hear a second motor car
+rush up to the extreme south end of the platform. She was not thinking
+of Windomshire or his machine. That is why she failed to witness an
+extraordinary incident.
+
+As the driver leaped from the car a second man disconnected himself
+from the shadows, paused for a moment to take orders from the new
+arrival, and then jumped into the seat just vacated. Whereupon the
+one-time driver performed precisely the same feat that Dauntless had
+performed three minutes before him. He jerked forth a couple of bags
+and then proceeded to lift from the tonneau of the car a vague but
+animate something, which, an instant later, resolved itself into the
+form of a woman at his side.
+
+"I've settled with the company, Meaders," hurriedly announced
+Windomshire to the man on the seat. "The car is in your hands now."
+
+"Yes, sir; I understand. Your week is up to-night. Hope it was
+satisfactory, sir." The car shot off in the night, almost running down
+a man who scudded across the street in its path.
+
+"Just in time, Anne," said Windomshire to the tall, hooded figure
+beside him. "Thank God, we didn't miss it."
+
+"Hasn't it been good sport, Harry?" cried the young woman, with an
+unmistakably English inflection. "It's just like a book."
+
+"Only more so," he observed. "This has really happened, you know.
+Things never really happen in books, don't you know. You've not lost
+your tickets, dear?"
+
+"No; they do that only in books. Really, I'm trembling like a leaf. I
+can't realise that it is all taking place as we planned, and that I am
+to be your wife after all. Ah, Harry! isn't it splendid?"
+
+"'Gad, little woman, I am the one who hasn't the right to realise. By
+Jove, I didn't give myself credit for the cleverness to fool every one
+so neatly. Really, don't you know, however, I feel a bit sorry for
+Miss Thursdale. She's a ripping good sort, and I'm sorry on that
+account."
+
+Miss Courtenay--erstwhile governess--took hold of the lapels of his
+raincoat and looked seriously up into his face. "Are you sure you'll
+never regret giving her up for me--with all her money?"
+
+"Oh, I say, Anne dear, it's I who am running away, not you. I've
+always wanted you--all my life. I've been something of a cad---"
+
+"It wasn't your fault. Mrs. Thursdale was bound to have you. It's her
+way."
+
+"It hurts my pride to say it, but hanged if I think--er--Eleanor was
+very strong for the match. I've a notion she was bullied into it."
+
+"I'm quite sure of it."
+
+"You're doing her a good turn, my dear. You see, I couldn't love her,
+and I'd probably have beaten her and all that. It wasn't as if I had
+to marry her for her money. Deuce take it, I've got a few pounds of my
+own."
+
+"I'm only Anne Courtenay, the governess."
+
+"You'll be Lady Windomshire some day, my word for it--if the other
+chaps manage to die, God bless 'em. I say, here's the train. Good-
+night, dear, up you go! I'll go up ahead. Don't forget! The wedding's
+at noon to-morrow."
+
+The long, shadowy train came to a stop. He elbowed the porter aside
+and helped her up the steps. Neither of them noticed the vague figure
+which rushed across the platform and into the second car below.
+
+"Where's the luggage car?" shouted Windomshire to the porter.
+
+"The what?"
+
+"I mean the baggage van."
+
+"Way up front, sir. Where they're puttin' on the trunks, sir."
+
+Swinging his travelling bag almost at arm's length, the long
+Englishman raced forward. His own and Miss Courtenay's pieces had come
+over during the afternoon, skilfully smuggled out of the Thursdale
+house. Just as he reached the baggage truck a panting, mud-covered
+individual dashed up from the opposite direction, madly rushing for
+the train. They tried to avoid a collision, but failed. A second later
+the two men were staring into each other's eyes, open-mouthed and
+dismayed.
+
+"Hello!" gasped Dauntless, staggered.
+
+"What the devil, sir, do--My word! It's Dauntless!" sputtered
+Windomshire.
+
+"Where is she?" shouted Joe, convinced that his rival had captured his
+runaway fiancee and was now confronting him for explanation.
+
+"Confound you, sir, it's none of your business," roared Windomshire,
+confident that Dauntless had been sent by Mrs. Thursdale to intercept
+him in his flight with the governess. "Damn your impudence!"
+
+"Stand aside, Windomshire," exclaimed Joe, white with anger and dread.
+"I'm going to find her. What have you done with her?"
+
+"You sha'n't interfere, Dauntless," cried Windomshire, squaring
+himself. "She's going to be my wife, and---"
+
+"I guess NOT! Get out of my way, or---"
+
+"She's on that train, confound you, and I'm going away with her
+whether you like it or not--or anybody else, for that matter," said
+Windomshire, refusing to budge an inch.
+
+"Well, you'll have a damned hard time getting rid of me," roared Joe,
+trying to break past his rival. A baggage-man leaped between them in
+time to prevent blows. He held the angry, mistaken rivals apart,--
+rivals no longer, if they only knew. "Let go of me! Hold this fellow
+and I'll give you a hundred dollars--hold him till the train goes!"
+
+"Hold me, will you? My word! What is this? A highway robbery!"
+
+Both men broke away from the baggage-man and rushed frantically down
+the line of cars, each trying to hold the other back. Joe succeeded in
+grasping the handrail of the first sleeping-car, but his adversary
+pulled him away. An instant later they were struggling across the
+station platform, clasped in savage and hysterical combat. The station
+employees were rushing up to separate them when the train began to
+move slowly away.
+
+[Illustration: Eleanor was still sitting ... stiff and silent]
+
+They came to their senses a moment later to find themselves held
+firmly by brawny peacemakers, the black cars rushing swiftly by
+without them.
+
+Forgetting the battle so inopportunely begun, they started off madly
+in pursuit, shouting, yelling, commanding. But the flyer was deaf to
+their cries, callous against their tears. It whistled off into the
+north, carrying two trusting, nervous young women, who were secure in
+the belief that their liege lords to be were aboard, utterly
+unconscious of the true state of affairs. In the drawing-room of Car 5
+Eleanor was still sitting, with her veil down, her raincoat saturating
+the couch on which she sat stiff and silent. Anne Courtenay in Car 7
+was philosophically preparing for bed, absolutely confident that the
+Englishman she had loved for years was not going to fail her.
+
+Windomshire, alas, came to grief in his useless pursuit. He fell off
+the end of the platform and rolled in the mud, half stunned. When he
+painfully picked himself up, he saw Dauntless sitting on the edge of
+the walk, his haggard, staring face lighted by the glare of a
+sympathetic lantern. The station agent was offering vain but well-
+intended commiseration.
+
+"Good God!" he heard Joe groan, but he did not catch the words, "she's
+gone without me!"
+
+The next instant the distracted eloper was on his feet demanding a
+special engine.
+
+"I've got to have it!" he shouted.
+
+Windomshire's wits returned. Why not have a special too? It was the
+only way.
+
+"You can order one for me, too," he exclaimed. "At once. It's
+imperative."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE MORNING AFTER
+
+
+The sun was peeping over the hilltops and shooting his merry glance
+across the rain-soaked lowlands when Eleanor Thursdale awoke from her
+final snatch of slumber. A hundred feverish lapses into restless
+subconsciousness had marked the passage of nearly as many miles of
+clatter and turmoil. Never before had she known a train to be so
+noisy; never before had she lain awake long enough to make the natural
+discovery. It seemed hours before she dropped off in the first
+surrender to sleep; it seemed hours between the succeeding falls. Her
+brain and heart were waging the most relentless battle against peace
+and security. She KNEW Joe Dauntless was but two cars ahead, and yet
+she wondered if were really there; she wondered and was troubled--oh,
+so troubled.
+
+Daylight was creeping in beneath the curtain of the window. She
+stretched her fine, tired young body, and for the first time really
+felt like going to sleep. The perversity of early morning! Gradually
+it dawned upon her that the train was not moving; as far back as she
+could recall in her now wakeful spell it occurred to her that the cars
+had been standing still and that everything was as quiet as death. She
+looked at her watch; it was six o'clock.
+
+"Goodness!" she thought, sitting up suddenly, "what is the matter?"
+The curtain flew up and her startled eyes blinked out upon the glaring
+world.
+
+There was not a house in sight as far as her eyes could range forward
+and behind. Instead, a wide sweep of farm lands partially submerged by
+the flood water of many rains. Far away there were brown hills and a
+long army of tall trees standing at attention,--a bleak prospect
+despite the cheery intentions of the sun, which lurked behind the
+hills. Despondent cornstalks of last year's growth stood guard over
+the soggy fields; drenched, unhappy tufts of grass, and forlorn but
+triumphant reeds arose here and there from the watery wastes,
+asserting their victory over a dismantled winter. It was not a
+glorious view that met the gaze of the bride on her wedding morn.
+
+Strangest of all, the train was so quiet, so utterly inactive, that an
+absurd feeling of loneliness grew upon her, gradually developing into
+the alarming certainty that she was the only living person in the
+world. Then she heard men's voices outside of the window; her relief
+was almost hysterical. Scrambling out of the berth, she began a hasty,
+nervous toilet. Three sharp pushes on the button brought the company's
+ladies' maid--advertised as a part of the luxury and refinement which
+made the flyer "the finest train in the world."
+
+"What has happened? Where are we?" she demanded, upon the entrance of
+the sleepy young coloured woman.
+
+"The Pride River bridge is washed away, ma'am," said the maid. "We
+can't go on no furder."
+
+"Dear me," sighed Eleanor, turning to be buttoned at the back. "And
+where is Pride River bridge--or where was it, I mean?"
+
+"'Bout twenty mile south of Omegon, ma'am--miss. The river's a sight--
+highest 'at it's ever been known. It's all over the bottoms. This here
+train came mighty nigh running into it, too. A boy flagged it just in
+time, 'bout five o'clock."
+
+"Have we been standing here a whole hour?"
+
+"Yes, miss; right here. They say we can't go back till the section
+boss has examined the track in Baxter's Cut. Seems as though there's
+some danger of a washout back yander."
+
+"Do you mean to say we are likely to stay here indefinitely?" gasped
+Eleanor. "Ouch! Be careful, please!"
+
+"Oh, it won't be long. The porter says they've sent back over the line
+to telegraft for the section men."
+
+"Good Heavens, is there no station here?"
+
+"No, ma'am; five miles back. They's one jest across the river, but it
+might as well be in Africa."
+
+"Be quick, please, and then send the conductor to me--and the porter
+too," urged Eleanor, in distress.
+
+The porter was the first to arrive.
+
+"Porter, will you go to Car 7 and see if the occupant of lower 4 is
+awake? I am quite sure that is right, but if it should happen to be
+wrong, please let me know at once."
+
+"Yes, miss; and what shall I tell her?"
+
+"Ahem! It's a--a gentleman. Ask him to--to come to the rear end of the
+train. That's all. Oh, conductor, how soon will we be on the track
+again?" The conductor was standing in the door, evidently impressed by
+the summons from the drawing-room.
+
+"We're not off the track, madam. There is no danger--just a little
+delay. I have telegraphed to see if I can have a relief train come
+down from Omegon and pick us up after we've been ferried across the
+river."
+
+"This is the very worst road I've ever travelled over--the very
+worst," was Eleanor's natural complaint. "When will that get us to
+Omegon?"
+
+"We should be there in an hour after leaving here."
+
+"And when did you say we'd leave here?"
+
+"I didn't say. I don't know."
+
+"Who does know, if you don't?" demanded Eleanor.
+
+"God, I presume," observed the harassed conductor, turning away with
+the realisation that he had erred in coming to her in the first place.
+The porter returned at that moment.
+
+"Nobody in that section, ma'am. It was sold, but the party didn't show
+up."
+
+"Good Heavens, you--but he DID show up. I--I know he did. Look again.
+Try--but wait! Ask for Mr. Dauntless. Ask quietly, please."
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+Her nerves at highest tension, Miss Thursdale made her way toward the
+rear platform of the train. She passed down the curtained aisles of
+two coaches, wondering how people could sleep so soundly in a crisis
+like this. A porter politely opened a door and she slipped out upon
+the last platform. As far as the eye could reach stretched the roadbed
+and its telegraph poles, finally disappearing in the haze of the
+morning. Wide-spread flood, soaking the flat---
+
+A sharp cry of amazement came from the track just below her. She
+looked down and into the eyes of Anne Courtenay, the governess. For a
+full minute they stared blankly at each other, apparently bereft of
+all the agencies that fall to the lot of woman.
+
+"Miss Courtenay!" finally came from the lips of the girl on the
+platform.
+
+"Miss Thursdale!" murmured Anne, reaching out to support herself
+against the bumper. Other words failed to come for the time being. In
+sheer despair, neither could accomplish more than a pallid smile. To
+the reader is left the privilege of analysing the thoughts which
+surged through the brains of the bewildered young women,--the fears,
+the doubts, the resentments.
+
+"Where--where have you been?" at last fell from Miss Thursdale's lips.
+
+"Been?" repeated Miss Courtenay, vaguely. "Oh, yes; I've been taking a
+walk--a constitutional. I always do."
+
+Eleanor stared harder than ever. "All this distance?" she murmured.
+
+"Down the track for half a mile, Miss Thursdale."
+
+"Are--were you on this train?" ejaculated Eleanor.
+
+"Yes--but I--I---" stammered Anne, her face growing red with rising
+resentment. "I did not think this of you."
+
+"What do you mean? It is--May I ask why you are here, Miss Courtenay?
+It is most extraordinary."
+
+"It is very easily explained," said Miss Courtenay, after a moment's
+battle with veracity. "My aunt is very ill in Vancouver." To herself
+she was saying: "I must keep her from really seeing Harry. She knows
+what he has done--in heaven's name, how could she have found it out?--
+and she is waiting to catch us if she can. She has followed us! Thank
+goodness, I've seen her first."
+
+Eleanor was not blessed with the possibility of such an explanation
+for Anne's presence; she could only believe that the governess had
+been suddenly called to the bedside of her aunt--a real person, she
+happened to know, and very rich. But how was she to account for her
+own astonishing departure from home? Miss Courtenay had seen her at
+dinner; nothing had been said regarding "an unexpected journey." In
+truth, Eleanor remembered with inflexible accuracy that she had
+announced her intention to go to bed with a headache. Then, what must
+Miss Courtenay be thinking at this very instant?
+
+An inspiration came to her like a flash. "I--I am running away, Miss
+Courtenay," she cried, with a brave attempt to appear naive.
+
+"I don't understand," murmured poor Anne.
+
+"Of course you don't," said Eleanor, inspiration heaping itself up
+within her. "Not really, you know, but just for a few days' rest.
+Mother thinks I'm looking wretchedly. We didn't say anything about it-
+-except to Mr. Windomshire, of course. He knows. Perhaps he will run
+up to Omegon in a day or two to see me. It's very quiet there, and
+I'll get a good rest. The hotel is delightful--facing the lake. And
+the bathing's good. Dear me, I'm so sorry about your aunt." Miss
+Courtenay's eyes actually blinked with perplexity. This was a most
+staggering bit of news. Eleanor flushed painfully under the gaze of
+the other; utter rout followed. She stammered some flimsy excuse and
+dashed back into the car. To herself she was crying: "I must find Joe
+and tell him to keep out of sight. Oh, how awful this is!"
+
+Just inside the door she met her porter.
+
+"There's nobody named Dauntless on the train, miss. A gentleman who
+said he was his friend thinks he missed the train perhaps."
+
+"He--he--oh, I see!" said Eleanor, suddenly perceiving method in Joe's
+reluctance to answer to his own name. "Thank you. That's all." Then,
+to herself: "He has seen Miss Courtenay, and she HASN'T seen him,--
+that's plain." She handed the porter a coin.
+
+"I went to the berth you mentioned, ma'am, and I asked through the
+curtains: 'Is Mr. Dauntless in here?' There was a lady in the upper,
+miss, an'--an'--well, I'll never forget what she said to me." Eleanor
+had gone before he concluded, determined to unearth her cautious
+lover, if possible.
+
+Anne caught the porter before he could follow.
+
+"See here, porter," she whispered softly, "go to Car 5, section 6, and
+call its occupant. Tell him NOT to get up. Do you understand? NOT to
+get up!"
+
+It goes without saying, of course, that all efforts, secret or
+otherwise, failed to locate the missing men. The distracted brides,
+each trying to run away from the other in a way, were in a state of
+collapse, necessarily subdued but most alarming. The Rev. Henry Derby,
+a nice-looking young fellow, who looked more like a tennis player than
+a minister of the gospel, eventually identified his old friend's ladye
+faire, and introduced himself with a discreetness that proved him to
+have been in college at the proper period and in a somewhat different
+class from that which he now sought to lead. In the privacy of her
+drawing-room the bewitching but distressed young woman discussed the
+situation with the man who had been chosen to perform the clandestine
+ceremony in the far-away town of Omegon. Derby, coming on from his
+eastern home in loyal acquiescence to his friend's request, had
+designedly taken this train, it being understood that Dauntless would
+board it at Fenlock with his fair conspirator. We all know why
+Dauntless failed to perform his part of the agreement; Derby, with the
+perspicuity of a college man, finally advanced a reason for his
+inexplicable failure to appear. Eleanor had begun tearfully to accuse
+him of abandoning her at the last moment; Mr. Derby indignantly
+scouted the idea. When she related their chase in the motor and their
+escape from Windomshire, he formed his conclusions, and they were in
+the main remarkably correct.
+
+"I'm afraid, Miss Thursdale, that your disappointed lover, our ancient
+enemy, the Englishman, was not to be overcome so neatly. Has it
+occurred to you that he may have reached Fenlock before the train
+left, and that he is the explanation for Joe's non-appearance?"
+
+"You--you don't mean that he has killed---" she was gasping, growing
+whiter and whiter. He hastened to reassure her.
+
+"Oh, no; not so bad as that. But it is possible and quite probable
+that he--if, as you say, he was on to your--I should say, aware of
+your flight, it is probable that he succeeded in detaining Joe in
+Fenlock. That would---" "Impossible! Joe wouldn't let him!" she cried
+indignantly.
+
+"Perhaps Joe couldn't help himself. Such things happen. At any rate,
+you'll understand, the despised enemy could have---"
+
+"Mr. Windomshire is not a despised enemy. He's a VERY nice man, Mr.
+Derby," she interrupted.
+
+"Certainly, Miss Thursdale. What I meant to say was, that he was
+morally sure of preventing the wedding if he could only keep you far
+enough apart. Now that is probably what he has done. You can't marry
+Joe in Omegon or anywhere else unless he is there and not in Fenlock."
+
+"I see. Well, I'll go back to Fenlock!" she exclaimed emphatically, a
+little line of determination and stubbornness settling about the
+erstwhile trembling lips.
+
+"I admire your loyalty," he said warmly. "Just at present, however, we
+are water-bound here, and we've got to make the best of it. I fancy
+Joe will telegraph before long."
+
+"If--if he hasn't been hurt. Oh, Mr. Derby, they may have fought. It
+would be just like them. It may be dreadfully serious. You don't know
+as much about men as I do. They're terribly---"
+
+"Please don't worry, Miss Thursdale," he said, smiling in recollection
+of his football days. "You'll find there's been nothing bloody about
+all this. The delay is vexatious, but only temporary, I'm sure."
+
+"I'll marry Joe Dauntless now if it has to be delayed a hundred
+years," she cried, her eyes flashing.
+
+During the next half-hour poor Derby ran errands, carried messages and
+complaints to every one of the train men, finally administering
+smelling salts when it occurred to Eleanor that Joe might have fallen
+off the train during the night.
+
+In the meantime Anne Courtenay was having a sad half-hour of it. She
+had no one to turn to, no one to think it all out for her; she was
+alone and in great despair. The porter had failed to find the tall
+Englishman; the conductor had been equally unsuccessful; she herself
+had searched in vain. His trunks and hers were in the baggage car, she
+found, but there was no sign of the man himself. She was a self-
+reliant, sensible young woman, accustomed to the rigours of the world,
+but this was quite too overwhelming. The presence on the train of the
+girl that she had, to all intents and purposes, cruelly deceived, did
+not add to her comfort. As a matter of fact, she was quite fond of
+Eleanor; they were warm friends despite the vagaries of love. Miss
+Courtenay, among other things, began to wonder, as she sat in her
+tumbled berth, if retribution had more to do with this than chance.
+
+"Could he have fallen off the train?" she wondered, with a sudden
+chill of apprehension. The next instant she was calling to the porter.
+"Send the conductor to me at once. My friend has fallen off the train-
+-out of his window, perhaps. I am quite sure of it. I want an engine
+to go back and look for him. Hurry, please! don't stand there
+grinning."
+
+The Pullman conductor came up at that moment.
+
+"Are you the young lady who was asking for Mr. Dauntless?" he asked.
+
+"Dauntless?" she murmured. "No, I'm asking for an engine. Have you--"
+
+"There's another young lady asking for an engine, too, madam. It's
+impossible."
+
+"Am I to understand that I shall have to walk?--Oh," with a sudden
+start, "is--is there a Mr. Dauntless missing too?"
+
+"Seems so. He's gone."
+
+Anne dropped the curtains in his face, and then stared at them for a
+long time. Gradually she began to comprehend. A panic of fear came
+over her.
+
+"They have met somewhere and quarrelled! Mr. Dauntless was jealous--
+terribly so. He may have--good Heavens!--he may have killed him in the
+mistaken idea that Harry was running away with Eleanor. She's on this
+very train! It's perfectly natural. Porter," she called, "there has
+been foul play!"
+
+"Gee, miss! That's what the other lady is saying!"
+
+"The other--then it is a double murder! Don't laugh! It's--it's--"
+
+"Don't cry, miss; it's all right." She looked at him piteously for a
+moment, and then smiled at the absurdity of her conjecture.
+
+A tousled head came from between the curtains of the upper berth
+opposite, and a sleepy, hoarse voice demanded:
+
+"How long will we be here? What's the latest?"
+
+"We're on time, sah," replied the porter, from sheer force of habit.
+
+"The devil we are! Say, I've got to be in Omegon by ten o'clock. I'll
+sue this infernal road," snarled the irascible party, snapping the
+curtains together. It transpired that he was an agent for a medical
+college, travelling to Omegon on a most unwholesome but edifying
+mission. He was going up to take possession of the body of a man who
+had willed his carcass to the school. As the poor chap was not yet
+dead, but hopelessly ill, the desire for haste on the part of the
+agent may be misunderstood. It seems, however, that there was some
+talk of interference by relatives--and the disquieting prospect of a
+new will.
+
+"If I were you, miss," counselled the porter, "I'd go out and take a
+little walk. The sun is up, an' it's fine. The relief train will be
+here 'fore long--an' you all will be rowed acrost the river. Don't
+worry."
+
+"But I want to go back the way I came," expostulated Anne, feebly. "I
+can't go on without--until I know what has happened to--to Mr.
+Windomshire." She took his advice, however, and made her way to the
+rear platform.
+
+A number of disgruntled passengers were now abroad, and complaining
+bitterly of the delay. There was no hope of breakfast until the train
+reached Omegon, where a dining car was waiting. She stood on the
+platform and looked gloomily back over the long stretch of roadbed.
+
+"Isn't that an engine coming?" some one asked excitedly at her side.
+She turned and found Miss Thursdale, attended by a gentleman, to whom
+the question was addressed.
+
+"I believe--yes, it is, Miss Thursdale."
+
+"Then--then we'll all be taken back to the city," she said dejectedly.
+
+"I fancy not. It's probably bringing relief."
+
+"They--they may be bringing bad news," Eleanor groaned. "Oh, Miss
+Courtenay, how do you do--again? How is your--your grandmother, wasn't
+it?"
+
+"I--I--yes, I think so--I mean, I think she's no better. They may be
+bringing his body!" said the other girl, her eyes fixed on the distant
+locomotive.
+
+"Oh!" almost screamed Eleanor, and stared wildly without words.
+
+A brakeman far down the track was flagging the locomotive; it came to
+a stop, and several men were seen climbing down from the cab. Two of
+them eventually disengaged themselves from the little group and
+hurried forward. One was carrying a suitcase, and both walked as
+though they were either in pain or attended by extreme old age.
+
+"Why--why--" gasped Eleanor, "it's Joe!"
+
+"And--yes, thank God, it's Har--Mr. Windomshire," almost shrieked
+Anne.
+
+Then they turned and looked at each other in confusion. Neither had
+the courage to carry out the desire to fly to the arms of the man she
+longed to see more than all else in the world. They felt themselves to
+be caught red-handed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MRS. VAN TRUDER INTRUDES
+
+
+None but the most eager, loving eyes could possibly have recognised
+the newcomers. It is not unlikely that the remaining passengers
+mistook them for tramps. The rivals, morbidly suspicious of each
+other, taciturn to the point of unfriendliness, had indeed chartered a
+locomotive--not jointly by intention, but because of provoking
+necessity. There was but one engine to be had. It is safe to say that
+while they travelled many sore and turbulent miles in close proximity
+to each other, neither felt called upon to offer or to demand an
+explanation.
+
+Five hours in the tender of an engine had done much to reduce them to
+the level of the men in the cab, so far as personal appearance was
+concerned. They were still wearing their raincoats, much crumpled and
+discoloured; their faces were covered with coal dust; they were wet,
+bedraggled, and humble to the last degree. The American, naturally,
+was the one who clung to his suitcase; he had foreseen the need for a
+change of linen. They came toward the train with hesitating, uncertain
+steps. If their souls were gladdened by the sight of the two young
+women, general appearances failed to make record of it. It was noted
+by those who watched their approach that once both of them stopped
+short and seemed to waver in their determination to advance. That was
+when each became suddenly aware of the presence of an unexpected girl.
+Naturally, the Englishman was seriously staggered. The unexplained
+Eleanor appeared before his very eyes as an accusing nemesis; it is no
+wonder that his jaw dropped and his befuddled brain took to whirling.
+
+The girls, less regardful of appearances, climbed down from the
+platform and started forward to meet their knights-errant. The reader
+may readily appreciate the feelings of the quartette. Not one of them
+knew just precisely how much or how little the others knew; they were
+precariously near to being lost in the labyrinth. Something intangible
+but regular urged Windomshire to be politic; he advanced to meet
+Eleanor as if it were her due. Anne fell back, perplexed and hurt.
+
+"Hang it all," thought Joe, rage in his heart, "he beat me to her,
+after all. He'll be enough of a damned ass to try to kiss her before
+all these people, too." Whereupon, he closed his eyes tightly. When he
+opened them, Miss Courtenay was walking beside him and asking
+questions about the weather. Her cheeks were very pink. Windomshire
+had awkwardly clasped the hand of Miss Thursdale, muttering something
+not quite intelligible, even to himself. Eleanor was replying with
+equal blitheness.
+
+"How nice of you to come. Where are you going?"
+
+"Surprised, are you?" he was floundering. "Charmed. Ha, ha! By Jove,
+Eleanor--er--I heard you were booked by this train and I--I tried to
+catch it for a bit of a ride with you. I missed it, don't you know.
+I'll--I'll wager you don't know what I did in my desperation."
+
+"I couldn't guess," she said, trying to catch Joe's eye.
+
+"I hired a private engine, 'pon my word, and then telegraphed ahead to
+stop this train!"
+
+"Di--did you do that?" she gasped, forgetting that the bridge was out.
+
+Dauntless, meantime, was trying to explain to Miss Courtenay. She
+already had told him that her aunt was ill in Vancouver, and he had
+smiled politely and aimlessly.
+
+"I'm on my way to M----. Sudden trip, very important," he was saying.
+"Missed the train--I dare say it was this one--so I took an engine to
+follow up. Had to ride in the tender."
+
+"It must have been important," she ventured.
+
+"It was. I--" then with an inspired plunge--"I was due at a wedding."
+
+"How unfortunate! I hope you won't miss it altogether."
+
+Joe caught his breath and thought: "Now what the devil did she mean by
+that? Has Eleanor told her the whole story?"
+
+It must not be supposed that these young persons were lacking in the
+simpler gifts of intelligence; they were, individually, beginning to
+put two and two together, as the saying goes. They were grasping the
+real situation--groping for it, perhaps, but with a clear-sightedness
+and acumen which urged that a cautious tongue was expedient. If the
+duplicity was really as four-handed as it seemed, there could be no
+harm in waiting for the other fellow to blunder into exposure. Nothing
+could be explained, of course, until the conspirators found
+opportunity to consult privately under the new order of assignment.
+
+"How romantic!" Eleanor said, as she walked stiffly ahead with her
+uncomfortable fiance.
+
+"Eh?" was his simple remark. He was suddenly puzzled over the fact
+that he HAD caught up to the train. There was something startling in
+that. "Oh--er--not at all romantic, most prosaic. Couldn't get a
+coach. Been here long?"
+
+"Since five o'clock."
+
+"I--I suppose you got up to see the sunrise."
+
+"No, to see the river rise," she replied. "The bridge is gone." He was
+silent for twenty paces, trying to recall what he had said about
+telegraphing ahead.
+
+"You don't mean it! Then I daresay they haven't got my telegram
+stopping the train."
+
+"How annoying!"
+
+Dauntless had just said to Anne, in a fit of disgust: "Windomshire's
+got a lot of nerve. That was my engine, you know. I hired it."
+
+Windomshire went on to say, careful that Joe was quite out of hearing:
+"Mr. Dauntless was quite annoying. He got into my engine without an
+invitation, and I'm hanged if he'd take a hint, even after I hired a
+stoker to throw a spadeful of coal over him. I don't know why he
+should be in such a confounded hurry to get to--what's the name of the
+place? I--er--I really think I must go and speak to Miss Courtenay,
+Eleanor. She--er--looks ill."
+
+"It's her grandmother who is ill--not she. But, yes! Please try to
+cheer her up a bit, Harry. She's terribly upset."
+
+"I'm sure she is," muttered he, dropping back with more haste than
+gallantry. Mr. Dauntless sprang forward with equal alacrity, and wrong
+was right a moment later.
+
+"Joe dear," whispered Eleanor, "I've been nearly crazy. What
+happened?" He was vainly trying to clasp her hand.
+
+"Nell, he's on to us. I wish I knew just why Miss Courtenay is here.
+Lord, I'll never forget that ride."
+
+"It was just like you to take advantage of his engine."
+
+"His engine!" exploded Joe, wrathfully. Securely separated from the
+others, the elopers analysed the situation as best they could. Two
+separate enterprises struggled earnestly for an outcome. On the
+surface, the truth seemed plain enough: it was quite clear to both
+parties that the extraordinary chain of coincidence was not entirely
+due to Providence. There was something of design behind it all. The
+staggering part was the calamitous way in which chance had handled
+their dear and private affairs.
+
+"He doesn't know that you were in my automobile," concluded Dauntless,
+almost at the same time that a like opinion was being expressed by
+Windomshire. "Are you willing to go on with it, Nell? Are you scared
+out of it?"
+
+"No, indeed," she exclaimed, perplexity leaving her brow. "At first I
+feared he might have telegraphed to mother, but now I am sure he
+hasn't. He was not following me at all. He is in love with Anne, and
+he was surreptitiously off for a part of the distance with her. He
+really doesn't want to marry me, you know."
+
+"Well, he isn't going to, you see. By all that is holy, nothing shall
+stop us now, dear. We'll go on to Omegon and carry out everything just
+as we planned. If he's running off after another girl, it's time you
+put an end to him. Don't give him a thought."
+
+"Don't you think we'd better talk it over with Mr. Derby? He
+discreetly disappeared when he saw it was you."
+
+"Right! Let's hunt him out. By Jove, we can have him marry us right
+here,--great!"
+
+"No," she cried firmly, "it MUST be in a church." He could not move
+her from that stand.
+
+"Oh, if we could only get across that confounded river!" scolded Joe,
+as they went off in search of Derby.
+
+Windomshire was slowly reconciling himself to the fact that Eleanor
+loved Dauntless, but he could not get it out of his head that she
+still expected to marry as her mother had planned.
+
+"See here, Anne, it's all very well to say that she loves Dauntless.
+Of course she does. But that isn't going to prevent her from marrying
+me. I don't believe she was running away with him, don't you know. He
+was simply following her. That's the way these Americans do, you know.
+Now, the question is, won't she think it odd that you and I should
+happen to be doing almost the same thing?"
+
+"To be sure she will," said Anne, coolly. "She has a very bad opinion
+of me. I'm sure she doesn't believe you expect to marry me."
+
+"By Jove, dear, it sounds rather dreadful, doesn't it?" he groaned.
+"But of course you ARE going to marry me, so what's the odds? Then she
+can marry Dauntless to her heart's content. I say, are we never to get
+away from this beastly place?"
+
+"They are to row us across the river in boats. We'll be taken up by
+another train over there and carried on. Poor Mr. Dauntless, he looks
+so harassed."
+
+"By Jove, I feel rather cut up about him. He ought to have her, Anne.
+He's a decent chap, although he was da--very unreasonable last night.
+I like him, too, in spite of the fact that he kicked coal over me
+twice in that confounded bin. He was good enough to take a cinder out
+of my eye this morning, and I helped him to find his watch in the
+coal-bin. I say, Anne, we might get a farm wagon and drive to some
+village where there is a minister--"
+
+"No, Harry! you know I've set my heart on being married in a church.
+It seems so much more decent and--regular; especially after what has
+just happened."
+
+A porter appeared in the rear platform and shouted a warning to all
+those on the ground.
+
+"Get yo' things together. The boats'll be ready in ten minutes, ladies
+and gen'l'men." The locomotive uttered a few sharp whistles to
+reinforce his shouts, and everybody made a rush for the cars.
+
+The conductor and other trainmen had all they could do to reassure the
+more nervous and apprehensive of the passengers, many of whom were
+afraid of the swollen, ugly river just ahead. Boats had been sent up
+from a town some miles down the stream, and the passengers with their
+baggage, the express, and the mail pouches were to be ferried across.
+Word had been received that a makeshift train would pick them up on
+the other side, not far from the wrecked bridge, and take them to
+Omegon as quickly as possible.
+
+It was also announced that the company would be unable to send a train
+beyond Omegon and into the northwest for eight or ten hours, owing to
+extensive damage by the floods. Repairs to bridges and roadbed were
+necessary. In the meantime, the passengers would be cared for at the
+Somerset Hotel in Omegon, at the company's expense. The company
+regretted and deplored, etc.
+
+There was a frightful clamour by the through passengers, threats of
+lawsuits, claims for damage, execrations, and groans. In time,
+however, the whole company went trooping down the track under the
+leadership of the patient conductor. It was a sorry, disgruntled
+parade. Everybody wanted a porter at once, and when he could not get
+one, berated the road in fiercer terms than ever; men who had always
+carried their own bags to escape feeing a porter, now howled and raged
+because there was not an army of them on the spot. Everybody was
+constantly "damning" the luck.
+
+The conductor led his charges from the track through a muddy stubble-
+field and down to a point where half a dozen small rowboats were
+waiting among the willows. Dauntless and Eleanor were well up in
+front, their faces set resolutely toward Omegon. For some well-defined
+reason, Windomshire and Anne were the last in the strange procession.
+The medical college agent, the tall and sombre Mr. Hooker, was the
+first man into a boat. He said it was a case of life or death.
+
+Eleanor looked backward down the long file of trailers, a little smile
+on her lips.
+
+"They are not all going away to be married, are they, Joe?" she said,
+taking note of the unbroken array of sour countenances.
+
+"It looks like a funeral, my dear. Look at the cadaverous individual
+beside the con--Heavens, Nell, isn't that--by George, it is! It's old
+Mrs. Van Truder! Back there about half-way--the fat one. See her? Good
+Lord!"
+
+Eleanor turned pale and the joyous light fled from her eyes.
+
+"Oh, dear! I forgot that the Van Truders spend all their summers at
+Omegon. And it is she--and he, too. Oh, Joe, it's just awful!"
+
+"She's the worst old cat in town," groaned Dauntless. "We can't escape
+her. She'll spot us, and she'll never let go of us. I don't mind him.
+He's so near-sighted he couldn't see us. But she!"
+
+"She will suspect, Joe--she's sure to suspect, and she'll watch us
+like a hawk," whispered the distressed Eleanor. The Van Truders lived
+in the same block with the Thursdales in town. "She'll telegraph to
+mother!"
+
+"That reminds me," muttered Joe, looking at his watch. "I had hoped to
+telegraph to your mother about this time."
+
+"She will forgive us," said she, but she failed in her assumption of
+confidence. As a matter of fact she felt that her mother would not
+forgive.
+
+"Well, you left a note pinned on your pillow," said he, as if that
+covered all the sins.
+
+"Yes, but it was directed to Miss Courtenay, asking her to break it
+gently to mamma," said she, dismally.
+
+They had reached the edge of the river by this time and others came up
+with them. For a while they managed to keep out of old Mrs. Van
+Truder's range of vision, but her sharp eyes soon caught sight of them
+as they tried to slip into a boat that was already crowded to its full
+capacity.
+
+"Why, Eleanor Thursdale!" shouted the old lady, her aristocratic eyes
+almost crossing in their stare of amazement.
+
+"Discovered!" groaned Dauntless to the willows.
+
+Mrs. Van Truder pounced upon Eleanor and, between personal questions
+and impersonal reflections upon non-government railways, gave her a
+dizzy quarter of an hour. She ignored Mr. Dauntless almost
+completely,--quite entirely when she discovered Mr. Windomshire in the
+background. Little old Mr. Van Truder, in his usual state of
+subjection, was permitted to study the scenery at close range.
+
+"I was so afraid you'd marry that horrid Dauntless fellow," whispered
+Mrs. Van Truder. Eleanor gave vent to a constrained laugh.
+
+"How perfectly preposterous!"
+
+"When are you to be married, my dear?"
+
+"At once--I mean, quite soon. Isn't the scenery beautiful, Mr. Van
+Truder?" asked Eleanor in desperation.
+
+"It's too far away. I can't see it," grumbled the old gentleman.
+
+"He's so very near-sighted," explained his wife. "Do you expect to
+stay long at the Somerset?"
+
+"It all depends," said Eleanor, with a glance at Dauntless.
+
+"Isn't that your governess with Mr. Windomshire? I can't be mistaken."
+
+"Yes, she's going out to spend a few weeks with a rich aunt,--her
+sister's mother, I think."
+
+"How's that?" gasped the old lady.
+
+"I mean her mother's sister."
+
+"It sounded very strange, my dear."
+
+"About the mother having a sister?" guessed old Mr. Van Truder,
+sharply. "Seems all right to me."
+
+"They are going to row us across the river," volunteered Eleanor,
+helplessly.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Windomshire," called Mrs. Van Truder. Windomshire
+started and got very red in the face. Miss Courtenay's bow went
+unnoticed by the old lady. In sheer despair, the Englishman turned to
+Dauntless, a fellow-sufferer.
+
+"I say, old man," he began nervously, "I'd like to ask a favour of
+you."
+
+"Go ahead--anything I can do," said the other, blankly. Windomshire
+continued in lowered tones:
+
+"Deucedly awkward, but I forgot my bags at Fenlock. I see you've got
+yours. Would you mind lending me a fresh shirt and a collar, old
+chap?"
+
+"Gladly," cried Joe, very much relieved. "Will you take them now?"
+starting to open his bag. Windomshire hastily interposed.
+
+"I'd rather not, old chap. It's rather exposed here, don't you know.
+Later on, if you please. Thanks, old man; I'll not forget this." They
+shook hands without any apparent excuse.
+
+"Mr. Windomshire!" called Mrs. Van Truder. He turned with a hopeless
+look in his eyes. The two girls had misery and consternation plainly
+stamped in their faces. "We can't all go over in the next boats, you
+know. I've no doubt you and Miss Thursdale would not in the least mind
+being left to the last," with a sly smile.
+
+"Oh--er--ah, by Jove!" gasped Windomshire, with a glance at the still
+faces of the young women. He saw no relief there.
+
+"Blamed cat!" muttered Dauntless, gritting his teeth.
+
+"Mr. Dauntless, will you and Miss Courtenay come with us in this boat?
+I want some one to keep the snakes away; Mr. Van Truder can't see
+them, you know."
+
+There was no way out of it. Joe and Anne meekly followed the Van
+Truders into the wobbly boat, resentment in their hearts, uncertainty
+in their minds. They rowed away, leaving Windomshire and Eleanor
+standing among the willows, ill at ease and troubled beyond
+expression.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+AS NIGHT APPROACHES
+
+
+Neither spoke until the boat came to its slippery, uncertain landing-
+place on the opposite side of the river. Then each breathed easier, in
+a sigh that seemed to express both relief and dismay.
+
+"It's a very ugly looking river," she murmured encouragingly. She was
+afraid he might feel obliged, in honour, to offer an explanation for
+his presence, perhaps attempt to convince her in some tangible way
+that she was to expect nothing but slavish devotion from him in the
+future.
+
+"I don't wonder that the bridge gave way," he replied politely. They
+looked at each other involuntarily, and then instantly looked away.
+
+"I'd give my head to know what she expects of me," thought Windomshire
+miserably.
+
+"How I despise that old woman!" welled up in Eleanor's bitter heart.
+Everything was awry. Luckily for both of them a small boy slipped into
+the river at that moment. He was rescued by the brakeman, but not
+until the catastrophe had served its purpose as a godsend. The
+excitement which attended the rescue saved the couple an uncomfortable
+ten minutes. Eleanor went to the assistance of the distracted mother;
+Windomshire, in his eagerness to do something, offered to exchange
+clothes with the dripping trainman; the small boy howled as lustily as
+his wheezy lungs would permit. Everybody shouted advice to the mother,
+rebukes to the boy, and praise to the hero; altogether Providence was
+acting most handsomely.
+
+At last the final boatload of passengers crossed the river and drew up
+at the landing; Eleanor, with her bewildered fiance, stepped into the
+beaming presence of Mrs. Van Truder.
+
+"Come with us," she said with a friendliness that shattered all hope.
+"Mr. Van Truder has just arranged for breakfast at that farmhouse over
+there. The relief train won't be here for half an hour or more and you
+must be famished." Eleanor's flimsy excuses were unavailing; her
+protestations that she could not eat a mouthful fell on obdurate ears.
+Windomshire, catching sight of the forlorn Anne, was about to assert
+himself vigorously in declining the invitation when a meaning look
+from the governess caused him to refrain. The look very plainly told
+him to accept.
+
+The unhappy couple followed the Van Truders to the nearby farmhouse.
+They left behind them on the edge of the crowd, seated side by side on
+a pile of ties, two miserable partners in the fiasco. Gloomy, indeed,
+was the outlook for Miss Courtenay and the despised Mr. Dauntless.
+They were silent for many minutes after the departure, rage in their
+hearts. Then Mr. Dauntless could hold his tongue no longer.
+
+"Damn her!" he exploded so viciously that Anne jumped and cried out,--
+
+"Mr. Dauntless!"
+
+"Oh, you feel just as I do about it only you won't say it aloud," he
+exclaimed. "I won't stand for it!"
+
+"I--I am sure Miss Thursdale has done nothing to deserve your curses,"
+she began diplomatically.
+
+"Good Heavens, Miss Courtenay, you--Oh, I say, you know I didn't mean
+Eleanor. The old pelican--that's the one. Old Mrs. Intruder," he
+grated.
+
+"I am sure it is all quite regular," observed Anne, so seriously that
+he looked at her in wonder. It began to creep into his head that his
+speculations were wrong, after all. At any rate it seemed advisable to
+put a sharp curb on his tongue.
+
+"I'm sorry I spoke as I did about the old lady," he said, after a
+moment's reflection. "I was thinking of the way in which she left you
+out of her invitation to breakfast."
+
+"And yourself, incidentally," she smiled.
+
+"Miss Courtenay, I'm--I'm a confounded ass for not thinking of your
+breakfast. It's not too late. We are both hungry. Won't you come with
+me and have a bit of something to eat? We'll try that farmhouse
+ourselves. Come, let us hurry or the crowd will get in ahead of us.
+Ham and eggs and coffee! they always have that sort of breakfast in
+farmhouses, I'm told. Come."
+
+[Illustration: Seated side by side...two miserable partner in the
+fiasco]
+
+She sprang up cheerfully, and followed him across the meadow to the
+farmhouse. The Van Truder party was entering the door, smoke pouring
+forth suggestively from a chimney in the rear of the house. The sudden
+desire for ham and eggs was overcoming, in a way, the pangs of
+outraged love; there was solace in the new thought.
+
+That breakfast was one never to be forgotten by four persons; two
+others remembered it to their last days on account of its amazing
+excellence. A dozen persons were crowded into the little dining-room;
+no one went forth upon his travels with an empty stomach. No such
+profitable harvest had ever been reaped by the farmer. Dauntless and
+Anne ate off of a sewing-table in the corner. Mrs. Van Truder
+deliberately refused to hear Mr. Windomshire's timorous suggestion
+that they "make room" for them at the select table. Silent anathemas
+accompanied every mouthful of food that went down the despot's throat,
+but she did not know it. Fortunately the lovers were healthy and
+hungry.
+
+They fared forth after that memorable breakfast with lighter hearts,
+though still misplaced by an unrelenting fate.
+
+All the way to Omegon Anne sat in the seat with the seething
+Dauntless, each nursing a pride that had received almost insupportable
+injuries during the morning hours. Windomshire and Eleanor, under the
+espionage of the "oldest friend of the family," moped and sighed with
+a frankness that could not have escaped more discerning eyes. Mrs. Van
+Truder, having established herself as the much needed chaperon, sat
+back complacently and gave her charges every opportunity to hold
+private and no doubt sacred communication in the double seat just
+across the aisle.
+
+Eleanor pleaded fatigue, and forthwith closed her wistful eyes.
+Windomshire, with fine consideration, sank into a rapt study of the
+flitting farm lands. Having got but little sleep among the coals, he
+finally dropped off into a peaceful cat nap.
+
+Omegon was reached before Eleanor had the courage to awaken him. She
+did so then only because it was impossible for her to crawl over his
+knees without losing her dignity; they were planted sturdily against
+the seat in front. She fled like a scared child to Joe's side, her
+mind made up to cling to him now, no matter what manner of opposition
+prevailed.
+
+"I'll go with you, Joe," she whispered fiercely. "I don't care what
+any one says or thinks. Your cousin WILL meet us with the carriage,
+won't he?" she concluded piteously. Windomshire also had taken the
+bull by the horns and was helping Miss Courtenay from the train with
+an assiduity that brought down the wrath of obstructing passengers
+upon his devoted head.
+
+"He said he would," replied Dauntless, his spirits in the clouds. "We
+must get away from these people, Nell. I'll go crazy in another
+minute. There's Derby waiting for instructions. Dear old Darb--he's a
+brick. My cousin Jim is a deacon or something in the village church,
+dear, and he has promised to let us in. I suppose he has a key. He and
+his wife will be the only witnesses. By George, nothing can stop us
+now, dear, if you have the nerve to--Where the dickens is Jim?
+Confound him, I don't see him on the platform."
+
+He looked about the station platform--first anxiously, then
+impatiently, then--with consternation! His cousin was nowhere in
+sight. Cold with apprehensiveness, he dashed over to a citizen who
+wore a star upon his coat, almost dragging Eleanor after him.
+
+"Is Jim Carpenter here? Have you seen him? Do you know him?" he
+demanded.
+
+"He was here, mister. 'Bout two hours ago, I reckon. I guess you must
+be the fellow he was to meet--"
+
+"Yes, yes,--where is he now?"
+
+"I don't know, mister. His wife's got pneumonia, an' he told me to
+tell you he couldn't wait. He took the doctor right out to--"
+
+"Good Lord!" exploded Joe. The citizen jumped a few inches into the
+air. "He's gone?"
+
+"Yep. But he told me to tell you to go over to the Somerset an' wait
+till you hear from him."
+
+"Wait--till--I hear--from--him?" groaned Dauntless, wild-eyed but
+faint. He and Eleanor looked at each other in despair.
+
+"Go--to--the--hotel?" she murmured, her heart in her boots. "I never
+can do that," she continued. Her voice was full of tears.
+
+Mrs. Van Truder bore down upon them like an angry vulture. They saw
+her coming, but neither had the strength of purpose to move.
+
+Before they really knew how it happened, she was leading Eleanor to
+the hotel 'bus and he was limply following, lugging both bags with a
+faithfulness that seemed pathetic. Two minutes later they were in the
+'bus, touching knees with the equally dazed and discomfited English
+people.
+
+Back on the platform the elongated medical gentleman, Mr. Hooker, was
+talking loudly, wrathfully to the station agent. His voice rang in
+their ears long after the 'bus rolled away on its "trip" to the big
+summer hotel.
+
+"You say old man Grover ain't dead yet?" Mr. Hooker was growling
+resentfully, even indignantly.
+
+"He ain't expected to live till night, sir, poor old man," replied the
+agent.
+
+"Well, I'll be damned!" roared Mr. Hooker. "I don't see any sense in a
+man of his age hanging on like this. He's eighty-three. My time is
+valuable"--looking at his big silver watch--"and I can't afford to
+hang around here if he's going to act like this." The agent stared
+after him as if he were looking at a maniac. Mr. Hooker set off in the
+direction of old Mr. Grover's house, which had been pointed out to him
+by a gaping small boy. "I'll go up and see about it," he remarked, as
+he stepped across a wide rivulet in the middle of the main street. The
+Somerset Hotel was situated on the most beautiful point of land
+touching that trim little lake which attracted hundreds of city people
+annually by its summer wiles. It was too sedate and quiet to be
+fashionable; the select few who went there sought rest from the
+frivolities of the world. Eleanor Thursdale had spent one tiresome but
+proper season there immediately after the death of her father. She
+hated everything in connection with the place except the little old-
+fashioned church at the extreme end of the village street, fully half
+a mile from the hotel. She had chosen it, after romantic reflection,
+as the sanctuary in which she should become the wife of the man she
+loved, spurning the great church in town and one of its loveless
+matches.
+
+The forenoon is left to the imagination of the reader,--with all of
+its unsettled plans, its doubts and misgivings, its despairs and its
+failures, its subterfuges and its strategies, its aggravations and
+complaints. Bell-boys carried surreptitious notes from room to room;
+assurances, hopes, and reassurances passed one another in systematic
+confusion. Love was trying to find its way out of the maze.
+
+Immediately after luncheon Dauntless set out to discover his faithless
+cousin. Eleanor kept close to her room, in readiness for instant
+flight. The necessary Mr. Derby had his instructions to remain where
+he could be found without trouble. Mrs. Van Truder, taking up
+Eleanor's battles, busied herself and every one else in the impossible
+task of locating the young woman's trunks, which, according to
+uncertain reports, had gone mysteriously astray. Moreover, she had
+prepared a telegram to the young lady's mother, assuring her that she
+was quite safe; but Mr. Dauntless boldly intercepted Mr. Van Truder on
+his way to the desk.
+
+"Allow me," he remarked, deliberately taking the despatch from the old
+gentleman. "I'll send it from the station. Don't bother about it, Mr.
+Van Truder." He drove through the village, but did not stop at the
+station; his instructions to the driver did not include a pause
+anywhere. It is not necessary to relate what took place when he
+descended upon the unfortunate Jim; it is sufficient to say that he
+dragged him from his sick wife's bedside and berated him soundly for
+his treachery. Then it was all rearranged,--the hapless Jim being
+swept into promises which he could not break, even with death staring
+his wife in the face. The agitated Mr. Dauntless drove back to the
+hotel with a new set of details perfected. This time nothing should go
+wrong.
+
+His first action was to acquaint Derby with the plans, and then to
+send a note of instructions to Eleanor, guarding against any chance
+that they might not be able to communicate with each other in person.
+
+"It's all fixed," he announced to Derby, in a secluded corner of the
+grounds. "To-night at nine we are to be at the church down the road
+there--see it? Nobody is on to us, and Jim has a key. He will meet you
+there at a quarter of nine. But, hang it all, his wife can't act as a
+witness. We've got to provide one. He suggested the postmaster, but I
+don't like the idea; it looks too much like a cheap elopement. I'd
+just as soon have the cook or the housemaid. I'll get Eleanor there if
+I have to kill that Van Truder woman. Now, whom shall we have as the
+second witness?"
+
+"Windomshire, I'm afraid," lamented Derby. "You won't be able to get
+rid of him."
+
+"Hang him!" groaned Dauntless, his spirits falling, but instantly
+reviving. "But he's dead in love with Miss Courtenay. It's pitiful,
+old man. He feels that he's got to marry Nell, but it's not in his
+heart to do it. Now if we could only shunt him off on to Miss
+Courtenay this evening! Her train leaves at nine, they say. He might
+be forced to take her to the station if you will only get busy and
+make him jealous."
+
+"Jealous? I?"
+
+"Certainly. It won't be much of an effort for you, and it will help me
+immensely. Make love to her this afternoon, and when you suggest
+taking her to the station this evening he'll be so wrought up that he
+won't stand for it. See what I mean?"
+
+"Now see here, Joe, I'm willing to do a great deal for you, but this
+is too much. You forget that I am a minister of the gospel. It's--"
+
+"I know, old man, but you might do a little thing like this for--By
+Jove, I've got it! Why not have old Mr. Van Truder for the other
+witness?"
+
+Mr. Van Truder was crossing the lawn, picking his way carefully.
+
+"Good afternoon," greeted Dauntless.
+
+"Afternoon," responded Mr. Van Truder. "Is this the hotel?"
+
+"No, sir; the hotel is about ten feet to your left. By the way, Mr.
+Van Truder, would you mind doing me a favour this evening?"
+
+"Gladly. Who are you?"
+
+"Joe Dauntless."
+
+"Anything, my dear Joe."
+
+"Well, it's a dead secret."
+
+"A secret? Trust me," cried the old man, joyfully.
+
+"First, let me introduce my friend, the Rev. Mr. Derby. He's in the
+secret. It will go no farther, I trust, Mr. Van Truder."
+
+"My wife says I can't keep a secret, but I'll show her that I can.
+Trust me, my boy."
+
+"I'll bet you a hundred dollars you can't keep this one," said Joe,
+inspired.
+
+"Done!"
+
+"Well," bravely but cautiously, "I'm going to be married to-night. Be
+careful now! Look out! Don't explode! Remember the bet!" The old
+gentleman repressed his feelings.
+
+"Beautiful!" he exclaimed. "Congratulations, my boy."
+
+"Now for the favour. I want you to act as a witness. It's to be a very
+quiet affair." Dauntless explained as much of the situation to him as
+he thought necessary, omitting the lady's name. Mr. Van Truder bubbled
+over with joy and eagerness. He promised faithfully to accompany Mr.
+Derby, pooh-hooing the suggestion that he could not slip away from the
+hotel without his wife being aware of the fact.
+
+"Trust me, my boy. Don't worry. I'm always Johnny-on-the-spot. Where
+did you say the hotel was? I'll go up and get ready. Oh, by the way,
+who is the young lady?"
+
+"She's a friend of Mr. Dauntless's," said Mr. Derby.
+
+"To be sure; I might have known. Silly question."
+
+The young men watched him enter the hotel, but they did not see him
+fall into the clutches of his wife just inside the door.
+
+"Where have you been?" demanded Mrs. Van Truder.
+
+"I've been looking everywhere for you, my dear," he said, almost
+whimpering. "I've got a grand secret, but I can't tell you. Don't ask
+me!"
+
+"Is it a wedding?" she demanded sternly.
+
+"Dear me! Do you know it too?" he cried, bewildered. "But that's not
+the real secret; it's only part of it. Joe is going to marry some
+friend of his to-night--but that's as far as I'll go. I'll NOT betray
+the secret." He hurried away to avoid questions, muttering to himself
+as he went: "She's dying to know. But a secret's a secret. She sha'n't
+know that I am to be a witness."
+
+Mrs. Van Truder pondered long and deeply, but she was not well enough
+acquainted with all of the facts to hazard a guess as to who the girl
+might be. It came to her memory that Dauntless had been with Miss
+Courtenay all morning, however, and she wondered not a little.
+Windomshire was approaching in search of Anne, who was to have met him
+as if by accident in a corner of the reading-room.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Windomshire," exclaimed Mrs. Van Truder, darting toward him.
+
+"How do, Mrs. Van Truder? How are you to-day?" he asked, scarcely able
+to hide his annoyance.
+
+"That is the tenth time you've asked me that question. I must repeat:
+I am quite well."
+
+"Oh, pardon my inquisitiveness. It has been a very long day, you
+know."
+
+"I want you and Miss Thursdale to dine with me at eight this evening.
+I think I'll have a little surprise for you," she said mysteriously.
+Windomshire glared, and then managed to give a provisional acceptance.
+It all depended on the hour for leaving for the train. As he hurried
+off to find Anne he was groaning to himself: "How the deuce can I go
+to a dinner and run off again with Anne? I've got everything arranged.
+I can't let a beastly dinner interfere. I won't go, hang me if I do."
+He came upon Anne in the corner of the library--the most unfrequented
+corner.
+
+"Well?" she questioned eagerly. He clasped her hands, beaming once
+more.
+
+"I've seen him, dear. It's all right. My word, I've had no end of a
+busy day. The confounded fellow was out making calls on the
+congregation, as they say, and I had to pursue him from house to
+house, always missing him, by Jove."
+
+"But you DID find him?" anxiously.
+
+"Of course. He will be at the church at nine to-night--sharp. He
+understands that no one is to know about it. His fee is ten pounds--
+quite a bit for a chap like him. I found him calling upon a fellow who
+is about to die--a Mr. Grover. He sent out word I'd have to wait as
+the old gentleman was passing away. By Jove, do you know I was that
+intense that I sent in word that the old gentleman would have to wait
+a bit--I COULDN'T. The pastor came out and--well, it seems that the
+fee for helping a chap to get married is more substantial than what he
+gets for helping one to die. And, as luck would have it, I found a
+fellow who will act as one of the witnesses to the ceremony at this
+same house,--a Mr. Hooker, Anne. He came down on the train with us.
+Tall, dark, professional looking man. He was sitting on Mr. Grover's
+front steps when I got there. The other witness--must have two, you
+know--is the head-waiter in the dining-room here--"
+
+"The--head-waiter?" she gasped.
+
+"He's a very decent sort of chap, my dear--and, besides, we can't be
+choosers. Waiters are most discreet fellows, too. He's to get two
+pounds for his trouble. By Jove, I think I've done rather well. I'm
+sorry if you don't approve," he lamented.
+
+"But I do approve, Harry," she cried bravely. "It's lovely!"
+
+"Good! I knew you would. Now all we have to do is to slip away from
+here this evening, and--Oh, I say, hang it all! Mrs. Van Truder has
+asked me to dine with them this evening."
+
+"Isn't she running you a bit?" cried Anne, indignantly. "She had you
+for breakfast and luncheon and now it's dinner. I daresay she'll have
+you for tea too."
+
+"But I'm not going to her confounded dinner. That's settled. I can't
+do it, you know, and be on time for the wedding. Deuce take it, what
+does she take a fellow for? Hello, here comes the chap that Dauntless
+introduced to us this morning." Derby was approaching with a warm and
+ingratiating smile. "What's his name? Confound him."
+
+"Mr. Derby, I think. Why can't they give us a moment's peace?" she
+pouted. Derby came up to them, his eyes sparkling with a fire which
+they could not and were not to understand. He had surveyed them from a
+distance for some time before deciding to ruthlessly, cruelly break in
+upon the tranquil situation.
+
+"She's a pretty girl," he reflected, unconsciously going back to his
+college days, and quite forgetting his cloth--which, by the way, was a
+neat blue serge with a tender stripe. Consoling himself with the
+thought that he was doing it to accommodate an old friend, the good-
+looking Mr. Derby boldly entered the lists for the afternoon. He felt,
+somehow, that he had it in his power to make Mr. Windomshire quite
+jealous--and at the same time do nothing reprehensible. What he did
+succeed in doing, alas, was to make two young people needlessly
+miserable for a whole afternoon--bringing on grievous headaches and an
+attack of suppressed melancholia that savoured somewhat of actual
+madness.
+
+[Illustration: Windomshire]
+
+True to his project, he laboured hard and skilfully for hours.
+Windomshire moved about in solitude, gnashing his teeth, while Derby
+unceremoniously whisked the dazed Anne off for pleasant walks or held
+her at bay in some secluded corner of the parlours. By dinner-time,
+encouraged by Joe's wild but cautious applause, he had driven
+Windomshire almost to distraction. A thing he did not know, however,--
+else his pride might have cringed perceptibly,--was that Anne
+Courtenay was growing to hate him as no one was ever hated before.
+
+"Well," he said to the nervous Mr. Dauntless at seven o'clock that
+evening, having arrived at what he called the conclusion of his day's
+work, "I think I've done all that was expected, haven't I?"
+
+"You've got him crazy, old boy. Look at him! It's the first minute
+he's had since half-past two. Say, what do you think of this cursed
+weather? It's raining again--and muddy! Great Scot, old man! it's knee
+deep, and we don't dare take a carriage to the church. One can't sneak
+worth a cent in a cab, you know. See you later! There's Eleanor
+waiting to speak to me. By George, I'm nervous. You WON'T fail us, old
+man?"
+
+"I'll do my part, Joe," said Derby, smiling.
+
+"Well, so long, if I don't see you before nine. You look out for old
+Mr. Van Truder, will you? See that he sneaks out properly. And--"
+
+"Don't worry, old chap. Go to Miss Thursdale. She seems nervous."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE ROAD TO PARADISE
+
+
+Night again--and again the mist and the drizzle; again the country
+lane, but without the warm club-house fire, the cheery lights, the
+highball, and the thumping motor car. Soggy, squashy mud instead of
+the clean tonneau; heavy, cruel wading through unknown by-ways in
+place of the thrilling rush to Fenlock. Not twenty-four hours had
+passed, and yet it seemed that ages lay between the joyous midnight
+and the sodden, heart-breaking eve that followed.
+
+The guests at the Somerset kept close indoors,--that is, most of them
+did. It is with those who fared forth resolutely into the night that
+we have to do; the rest of the world is to be barred from any further
+connection with this little history. It is far out in the dreary
+country lane and not inside the warm hotel that we struggle to attain
+our end. First one, then another stealthy figure crept forth into the
+drizzle; before the big clock struck half-past eight, at least six
+respectable and supposedly sensible persons had mysteriously
+disappeared. Only one of our close acquaintances remained in the
+hotel,--Mrs. Van Truder. It was not to be long, however, before she,
+too, would be adventuring forth in search of the unknown.
+
+By this it may be readily understood that Mr. Van Truder had succeeded
+in escaping from beneath her very nose, as it were.
+
+The little village church stood at the extreme end of the street,--
+dark, dismal, quite awe-inspiring on a night like this. A narrow lane
+stretched from the hotel to the sanctuary and beyond. There is nothing
+at hand to show whether it is a Methodist, a Presbyterian, or a
+Baptist church. As the two young women most vitally concerned in this
+tale were professedly high church, it is therefore no more than right
+that, in the darkness, it should be looked upon as an Episcopalian
+church.
+
+Two stumbling figures, pressing close to each other in the shelter of
+a single wobbly umbrella, forged their uncertain way through the muddy
+lane. Except for the brief instants when the dull flicker of lightning
+came to their relief, they were in pitch darkness.
+
+"Beastly dark, isn't it?" said one of the figures.
+
+"And beastly muddy too," said the other, in a high, disconsolate
+treble. "Oh, dear, where are we?"
+
+"I don't know, but I feel as though we were about to step off of
+something every moment. Do you know, Anne, it's extraordinary that I
+shouldn't know how to light one of these confounded lanterns."
+
+"Try it again, Harry dear. I'll hold the umbrella."
+
+"Oh, I see! By Jove, one has to open the thing, don't you know. Ah,
+there we are! That's better," he said, after he had succeeded in
+finally lighting the wick. He held the lantern up close to her face
+and they looked at each other for a moment. "Anne, I do love you!" he
+exclaimed. Then he kissed her. "That's the first time I've had a
+chance to kiss you in thirty-six hours."
+
+They plodded onward, closer together than ever, coming at last to the
+little gate which opened into the churchyard. Before them stood the
+black little building with its steeple, but the windows were as dark
+as Erebus. They stopped in consternation. He looked at his watch.
+
+"Confound him, he's not here!" growled Windomshire.
+
+"Perhaps we are early," suggested Anne, feebly.
+
+"It's a quarter to nine," he said. "I suppose there is nothing left
+for us to do but to wait. I'll look around a bit, dear. Perhaps the
+witnesses are here somewhere."
+
+"Oo-oo-ooh! Don't leave me!" she almost shrieked. "Look! There is a
+graveyard! I won't stay here alone!" They were standing at the foot of
+the rough wooden steps leading up to the church door.
+
+"Pooh! Don't be afraid of tombstones," he scoffed; but he was
+conscious of a little shiver in his back. "They can't bite, you know.
+Besides, all churches have graveyards and crypts and--"
+
+"This one has no crypt," she announced positively. "Goodness, I'm mud
+up to my knees and rain down to them. Why doesn't he come?"
+
+"I'll give the signal; we had to arrange one, you know, for the sake
+of identity." He gave three loud, guttural coughs. A dog in the
+distance howled mournfully, as if in response. Anne crept closer to
+his side.
+
+"It sounded as if some one were dying," she whispered. "Look, isn't
+that a light?--over there among the gravestones!" A light flickered
+for an instant in the wretched little graveyard and then disappeared
+as mysteriously as it came. "It's gone! How ghostly!"
+
+"Extraordinary! I don't understand. By Jove, it's beginning to rain
+again. I'm sure to have tonsilitis. I feel it when I cough." He
+coughed again, louder than before.
+
+Suddenly the steady beam of a dark lantern struck their faces
+squarely; a moment later the cadaverous Mr. Hooker was climbing over
+the graveyard fence.
+
+"Am I late?" he asked, as he came forward.
+
+"I say, turn that beastly light the other way," complained
+Windomshire, half blinded. "I thought no one but robbers carried dark
+lanterns."
+
+"The darker the deed, the darker the lantern," said Mr. Hooker,
+genially. "Good-evening, madam. Are we the only ones here?" He was
+very matter-of-fact and business-like; Anne loathed him on the
+instant.
+
+"We're all here but the minister and the other witness. I'll cough
+again--although it hurts me to do it."
+
+He coughed thrice, but instead of a response in kind, three sharp
+whistles came from the trees at the left.
+
+"What's that?" he gasped. "Has he forgotten the signal?"
+
+"Maybe he is trying to cough," said Hooker, "and can't do any better
+than wheeze. It's this rotten weather."
+
+"No, it was a whistle. Good Heavens, Anne--it may be detectives."
+
+"Detectives!" exclaimed Mr. Hooker, hoarsely. "Then this is no place
+for me. Excuse me, I'll just step around the corner." As he scurried
+off, he might have been heard to mutter to himself: "They've been
+hounding me ever since that job in the Cosgrove cemetery. Damn 'em, I
+wonder if they think I'm up here to rob the grave of one of these
+jays." From which it may be suspected that Mr. Hooker had been
+employed in the nefarious at one time or another.
+
+"Detectives, Harry?" gasped Anne. "Why should there be detectives?
+We're not criminals."
+
+"You can't tell what Mrs. Thursdale may have done when she discovered-
+-Hello! There's a light down the road! 'Gad, I'll hide this lantern
+until we're sure." He promptly stuck the lantern inside his big
+raincoat and they were in darkness again. A hundred yards to the left
+a light bobbed about, reminding them of childhood's will-o'-the-wisp.
+Without a word Windomshire drew her around the church, stumbling over
+a discarded pew seat that stood against the wall. Groaning with pain,
+he urged her to crouch down with him behind the seat. All the while he
+held the umbrella manfully over her devoted head.
+
+Voices were heard, drawing nearer and nearer--one deep and cheery, the
+other high and querulous.
+
+"It--it--oh, Harry, it's that Mr. Derby!" she whispered. "I'd know
+his voice in a thousand."
+
+"The devil!" he whispered intensely, gripping her hand.
+
+Mr. Derby was saying encouragingly: "There is the church, Mr. Van
+Trader. Brace up. We seem to be the first to arrive."
+
+"It's much farther away than you think," growled Mr. Van Truder. "I
+can't see the lights in the window."
+
+"There are no lights yet. We are ahead of them. I'll try the door."
+
+The young minister kicked the mud from his shoes as he went up the
+steps with the lantern. He tried the door vigorously, and then,
+holding the lantern high, surveyed the surroundings. Mr. Van Truder,
+bundled up like a motorman, stood below shivering--but with joy.
+
+"This is a great night for an affair of this kind," he quaked. "By
+George, I feel twenty years younger. I believe I could turn
+handsprings."
+
+"I wouldn't if I were you. Don't forget your somersault over that log
+back there, and your splendid headspin in the mud puddle. It's past
+nine o'clock. Joe's cousin was to be here at 8.45. Wonder what keeps
+him. Joe will be here himself in a jiffy. Dear me, what a dreadful
+night they have chosen for a wedding!"
+
+Windomshire whispered in horror to the girl beside him: "Good Lord,
+Anne, they're following us."
+
+"Please, Harry," she whispered petulantly, "hold the umbrella still.
+The water from the rainspout is dripping down my back."
+
+"By George, I wish Mrs. Van Truder could see me now," came valiantly
+from the old gentleman around the corner. "Say, whistle again." Derby
+gave three sharp, shrill whistles. In silence they waited a full
+minute for the response. There was not a sound except the dripping of
+the rain.
+
+"I'm afraid something is wrong," said Derby. Just at that instant
+Windomshire, despite most heroic efforts to prevent the catastrophe,
+sneezed with a violence that shook his entire frame. "Sh! don't
+speak," hissed the startled minister. "We are being watched. That was
+unmistakably a sneeze."
+
+"I can't see any one," whispered Mr. Van Trader, excitedly. "I see
+just as well in the dark as I do in the light, too."
+
+"Some one is coming. See! There's a light down the road. Let's step
+out of sight just for a moment."
+
+Windomshire sneezed again, as if to accelerate the movements of the
+two men.
+
+"Hang it all!" he gurgled in despair. Mr. Derby had blinded his
+lantern and was hurrying off into the grove with his companion.
+
+"I can't help laughing, Harry," whispered Anne, giggling softly. "You
+sneeze like an elephant."
+
+"But an elephant has more sense than to sneeze as I do. I knew I'd
+take cold. Anne, they're after us. It's old Mrs. Van Truder's work.
+What are they up to?"
+
+"Whatever it is, dear, they're just as much mystified as we are. Did
+you hear him whistle? It is a signal."
+
+"I say, Anne, it's a beastly mess I've got you into," groaned he.
+
+"Dear old Harry, it is but the beginning of the mess you're getting
+yourself into. I love this--every bit of it."
+
+"You're ripping, Anne; that's what you are. I--Great Scotland! Here
+comes the head-waiter, but we don't dare show ourselves. Did you ever
+know such beastly luck?"
+
+"There's another man too, away back there. And, look! Isn't that a
+light coming through the trees back of the gravestones? Good Heavens,
+Harry, we can't be married in a public thoroughfare. Everybody is
+walking with lanterns. It's awful."
+
+"Let's go around to the rear of the church," he exclaimed suddenly.
+"Perhaps we can get our brains to work on a plan of action. But, look
+here, Anne, no matter who they are or what they want, I'm going to
+marry you to-night if I have to do it in the face of the entire
+crowd."
+
+As they scurried off through the tall wet grass to a less exposed
+station, a solitary figure came haltingly through the little gate. It
+was the head-waiter, and, as he carried no lantern, he was compelled
+to light matches now and then; after getting his bearings he would
+dart resolutely on for a dozen paces before lighting another. Stopping
+in front of the church door, he nervously tried to penetrate the gloom
+with an anxious gaze; then, suddenly bethinking, he gave three timid
+little coughs. Getting no immediate response, he growled aloud in his
+wrath:
+
+"I've coughed my head off in front of every house between here and the
+hotel, and I'm gettin' darned tired of it. I don't like this business;
+and I never could stand for graveyards. Good Lord! what's that?"
+
+Three sharp whistles came to his alert ears, coming, it seemed, from
+the very heart of some grim old gravestone. A man strode boldly across
+the yard from the gate, his walk indicating that he was perfectly
+familiar with the lay of the land.
+
+"Who coughed?" he demanded loudly. "Is there no one here? What the
+dickens does it mean? Joe Dauntless! Where are you? No fooling now; my
+wife's worse, and I can't stay here all night." He whistled again, and
+the head-waiter coughed in a bewildered reply. "That's queer. Nothing
+was said about coughing."
+
+"Hello!" called the head-waiter. "Is it you, sir?"
+
+Joe Dauntless's cousin held his lantern on high and finally discovered
+the waiter near the pile of cordwood, ready to run at a moment's
+notice.
+
+"Who are you?" demanded Mr. Carpenter.
+
+"Gustave. But you ain't the man."
+
+"I ain't, eh? Didn't you whistle a minute ago?"
+
+"I ain't supposed to. I cough. Say, do you know if a wedding has taken
+place here? I am a witness."
+
+"Oh, I see. He said he'd bring one. Are you alone?"
+
+"I don't know. It feels like a crowd every time I cough. Are you the
+preacher?"
+
+"No, I'm the bridegroom's cousin. We've got to get in through a
+window. I couldn't find my key. Would you mind giving me a leg?"
+
+"A leg? Nothing was said about legs," said the waiter, moving away.
+Carpenter laughed.
+
+"I mean a boost up to the window."
+
+"Oh! Sure."
+
+"There's one in the rear I can smash. We'll get inside and light up. I
+can open the door from that side, too. Come on--follow me." They
+turned the corner and followed the path so lately taken by Windomshire
+and Anne. As they came to the back of the church they were startled
+and not a little alarmed by the sound of sudden scurrying and a well-
+defined imprecation, but it was too dark for them to distinguish any
+one. While they were trying to effect an entrance through one of the
+windows, other mystified participants in the night's affairs were
+looking on from secret and divers hiding-places. Far out in the little
+grove Derby and his old companion watched the operations of the
+church-breakers, the sickly glare of Carpenter's lantern as it stood
+upon the edge of the rain barrel affording an unholy light for the
+occasion. Windomshire and Anne, crouching behind a stack of old
+benches, looked on in amazement. Mr. Hooker, whose conscience was none
+too easy, doubtless for excellent reasons, peered forth from behind a
+tall tombstone. He had arrived at the conclusion that he was being
+hounded down as a body-snatcher.
+
+"This is a devil of a mess," he muttered dolefully. "If they catch me
+in this graveyard, I'll have a hard time proving an alibi. What an
+idiot I was to get into this thing! I guess I'll get out of it. He's
+got plenty of witnesses and I've got his ten dollars." He began
+sneaking off toward the extreme west end of the graveyard, bent on
+finding the road to town. "Holy smoke!" stopping short. "Another bunch
+of them coming! I'm surrounded!" He dropped down behind a weed-covered
+mound and glared straight ahead. Almost directly in his path a lantern
+wobbled and reeled slowly, finally bringing its bearer to the fence
+between the burying-ground and the churchyard. A man carried the light
+and half carried the form of a woman besides.
+
+"Brace up, Nell dear," Mr. Hooker heard the newcomer say as tenderly
+as his exertions would allow. "The worst is over. Here's the church.
+Good Heavens, just think of being lost in a graveyard!"
+
+"And climbing four fences and a tree," moaned Eleanor Thursdale. They
+had come up through the graveyard by mistake.
+
+"It wasn't a tree; it was a fence post. Great Scot! There's no light
+in the church. What's up? Wait here, dear, and I'll investigate."
+
+"Alone? Never!" she cried. They climbed their fifth fence,
+notwithstanding the fact that a gate was near at hand.
+
+"This is an awful pickle I've got you into. You ought to hate me--" he
+was groaning, but she checked him nobly.
+
+"Hush, Joe, I LOVE it," she cried.
+
+"You just wait and see how happy I'll make you for this." He was about
+to kiss her rapturously, but the act was stayed by the sound of a
+shrill whistle, thrice given. "There's Jim Carpenter and Derby," he
+exclaimed, and whistled in response. A moment later Derby strolled up
+from the grove, followed by the chattering Mr. Van Truder.
+
+"That you, Joe?"
+
+"Hello, Darb. Good! Where's Jim?"
+
+Some one whistled sharply off to the left, and then Jim Carpenter came
+hurrying up, the head-waiter close behind.
+
+"Hello, Joe. Say, has either of you been coughing?" demanded
+Carpenter, his hair ready to stand on end.
+
+"I should say not," said Joe. "I've scarcely been breathing."
+
+"Then some ghost is having a hemorrhage," said the head-waiter,
+dismally.
+
+[Illustration: "Hush, Joe, I LOVE it," she cried.]
+
+"Hello, Mr. Dauntless, are you a witness too?"
+
+"Say, Joe," said his cousin, quickly, "there's something strange going
+on. The whole place is full of people. I went back there to open a
+window and at least two men coughed--one of 'em sneezed. We're being
+watched. This man says he heard a woman back there, and I saw a funny
+kind of light in the graveyard."
+
+"Hang 'em!" growled Joe. "We can't stop now. Open up the church, Jim."
+
+"Can't. Lost my key. Is this Miss Thursdale? Glad to meet you. The
+window's the only way and they're surely watching back there."
+
+"Mamma has sent the officers after us," wailed Eleanor.
+
+"Let's go home," said the waiter. "I didn't agree to stay out all
+night."
+
+"Agree? Aha, I see. You are a spy!" cried Joe.
+
+"A spy? I guess not. I'm a witness."
+
+"It's the same thing," cackled Mr. Van Truder. "You're a spy witness."
+
+"Joe, isn't this fellow your witness?" demanded Carpenter.
+
+"I should say not. Mr. Van Truder is mine."
+
+"By George, I don't understand--"
+
+"Never mind, Jim, break into the church and let's have it over with.
+It's going to rain again."
+
+"Oh, I'm so tired," moaned the poor bride, mud-spattered, wet, and
+very far from being the spick and span young woman that fashionable
+society knew and loved.
+
+"By Jove!" came suddenly from the darkness, startling the entire
+party--a masculine voice full of surprise and--yes, consternation.
+Then there strode into the circle of light a tall figure in a
+shimmering mackintosh, closely followed by a young, resolute woman.
+
+"Windomshire!" gasped Dauntless, leaping in front of Eleanor, prepared
+to defend her with his life.
+
+"Miss Courtenay, too," murmured Eleanor, peeking under his arm.
+
+"Yes, by Jove," announced the harassed Englishman, at bay,--
+"Windomshire and Miss Courtenay." There was a long silence--a tableau,
+in fact. "Well, why doesn't some one say something? You've got us,
+don't you know."
+
+Eleanor Thursdale was the first to find words. She was faint with
+humiliation, but strong with the new resolve. Coming forth from behind
+Dauntless, she presented herself before the man her mother had chosen.
+
+"So you have found me out, Mr. Windomshire," she said pleadingly, a
+wry little smile on her lips. "You know all about it?"
+
+"I--er--by Jove, this is quite beyond me. Found you out? My word, you
+don't mean to say--"
+
+"I say, old man," said Dauntless, manfully, "let me explain. We've
+always loved each other. It isn't that she--"
+
+"Hang it all, man, I knew that," expostulated Windomshire. "It was a
+mistake all around. I love Anne, don't you know. There's no real harm
+done, I'm sure. But what puzzles me is this: why does Miss Thursdale
+persist in pursuing us if she loves you and doesn't care to marry me?"
+
+"The deuce! I like that," cried Dauntless. "You'd better begin by
+asking questions at home."
+
+"I take it," interposed Mr. Derby, with rare tact and discernment,
+"that both of you expect to be married, but not to each other as
+originally planned." Both Eleanor and Windomshire signified eager
+affirmation in more ways than one. "Then it seems to me a simple case
+of coincidence, which may be explained later on. Why discuss it now? I
+am in reality a minister, Miss Courtenay, and I am here to unite Miss
+Thursdale and Mr. Dauntless in the holy bonds of matrimony. I trust we
+may expect no interference on the part of Mr. Windomshire?"
+
+"Good Lord! No!" almost shouted Windomshire, clasping Anne's hand in a
+mighty grasp. "That's what we are here for ourselves--to be married--
+but the damned parson has deceived us." Jim Carpenter came out of his
+trance at this. "Say, are you the fellow Rev. Smith was to marry?
+Well, he won't be here. There's a surprise pound party at his house
+and the whole town is there. He couldn't leave to save his soul. It's
+the way he gets his living."
+
+"Oh, Anne!" cried Windomshire, in real despair.
+
+Anne slipped into the breach with rare old English fortitude. She
+addressed herself sweetly to Mr. Derby.
+
+"Mr. Derby, do you remember saying this afternoon that you'd do
+anything in the world for me?" Mr. Derby blushed and looked most
+unworthy of his calling, but managed to say that he WOULD do anything
+in the world for her. "Then, please take the place of the minister who
+couldn't come."
+
+"Good!" cried Dauntless, almost dancing.
+
+"I will, Miss Courtenay," said Derby. Windomshire grasped him by the
+hand, speechless with joy and relief.
+
+"I don't understand all this," complained Mr. Van Truder, vainly
+trying to see the excited, jubilant quartette. He only knew that they
+were all talking at once, suddenly without restraint. "I wish my wife
+were here; she'd understand."
+
+Jim Carpenter at last came to his senses and, dragging the head-waiter
+after him, sped to the rear of the church. A few minutes later lights
+flashed in the windows and then the front door swung open. Carpenter
+and Gustave stood smiling upon the threshold.
+
+"Enter!" called out the former. As the group quickly passed through
+the doorway, a long figure climbed down from the fence hard by and
+ventured up to the portal. It was Mr. Hooker, his face the picture of
+bewilderment.
+
+"Well, this beats me!" he ejaculated, leaning against the door jamb;
+none of those at the altar heard his remark. He stood there listening
+until the last words of the service which united two couples were
+uttered. Then he turned sorrowfully away and started across the yard.
+The sound of a wedding march played upon the wheezy cabinet organ by
+Jim Carpenter followed him into the gloom; above the gasp of the organ
+was lifted the unmistakable chatter of joyous voices.
+
+As he passed through the gate a great vehicle rolled up and stopped.
+It was drawn by two steaming horses, and the wagon lanterns told him
+that it was the Somerset Hotel 'bus. "I'll ride back with 'em," he
+thought comfortably.
+
+Some one climbed down from the rear of the 'bus, assisted by two young
+men in brass buttons. Mr. Hooker made way for a corpulent, puffing old
+lady. She stopped in front of him and demanded in hot, strident tones:
+
+"Where is my husband?"
+
+"Your husband?" repeated Mr. Hooker, politely. "Madam, you can search
+me. There's a whole churchful of husbands up there."
+
+"You--you---" she sputtered. "Am I too late? Support me, you fools,"
+she cried to the two bell-boys. They hurried across the churchyard,
+Mr. Hooker following. At the doorway she stopped, glaring hard at the
+well-lighted interior. "Mr. Van Truder! Mr. Van Truder!" she called
+out angrily, but her joyful other half did not hear her. He was trying
+at that moment to organise the company into a wedding procession.
+
+"Say," said Mr. Hooker, "maybe you'd better cough three times."
+
+
+
+
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