mobile began to slash the night and the rubber wheels boomed
across the bridge she did not waken. If the taxi-driver heard its
sound, he preferred to pretend not to. The passengers in the passing
car must have been surprised, but they took their wonderment with
them. We so often imagine mischief when there is innocence and _vice
versa_; for opportunity is just as likely to create distaste as
interest and the lack of it to instigate enterprise.

Davidge drowsed and smiled contentedly in the dark and did not know
that he was not awake until at some later time he was half aroused by
the meteoric glow and whiz of another automobile. It had gone before
he was quite awake, and he sank back into sleep.

Before he knew it, many black hours had slid by and daylight was come;
the rosy fingers of light were moving about, recreating the world to
vision, sketching a landscape hazily on a black canvas, then stippling
in the colors, and finishing, swiftly but gradually, the details to an
inconceivable minuteness of definition, giving each leaf its own sharp
contour and every rock its every facet. From the brook below a
mistlike cigarette smoke exhaled. The sky was crimson, then pink, then
amber, then blue.

Birds began to twitter, to fashion little crystal stanzas, and to
hurl themselves about the valley as if catapults propelled them. One
songster perched on the iron rail of the bridge and practised a vocal
lesson, cocking his head from side to side and seeming to approve his
own skill.

A furred caterpillar resumed his march across the Appian Way, making
of each crack between boards a great abyss to be bridged cautiously
with his own body. The day's work was begun, while Davidge drowsed and
smiled contentedly at the side of the strange, sleeping woman as if
they had been married for years.

CHAPTER IV

The sky was filled with morning when a noise startled Davidge out of
nullity. He was amazed to find a strange woman asleep at his elbow. He
remembered her suddenly.

With a clatter of wheels and cans and hoofs a milkman's wagon and team
came out of the hills. Davidge stepped down from the car and stopped
the loud-voiced, wide-mouthed driver with a gesture. He spoke in a low
voice which the milkman did not copy. The taxi-driver woke to the
extent of one eye and a horrible yawn, while Davidge explained his
plight.

"Gasolene gave out, hey?" said the milkman.

"It certainly did," said Davidge, "and I'd be very much ob