achinery of lies he
got it, I was too busy to inquire.

Finally, about ten o'clock at night we sat down to a little supper, my
pockets bulging with my notes, and my cyclist's overalls lying ready to
be donned once more.

IX.

ON THE SHORE.

Soon after eleven o'clock two dark figures slipped unostentatiously out
of the back door, and a moment later a third followed them. My heart
leapt with joy and surprise at the sight of it, and Tiel stopped and
turned.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"I'm coming too," said Eileen.

"Why?" he demanded in that tone of his which seemed to call upon the
questioned to answer with exceeding accuracy.

"Because I'd like a drive," she answered, with a woman's confidence
that her reason is good enough for anybody.

"As you please," he said, drily and with unfathomable calm; and then he
turned again, and in a voice that betrayed his interest in her, asked,
"What have you got on?"

"Quite enough, thank you."

"You are sure? I've lent my spare coat to Belke, but I can get another
rug."

"I am quite sure," she smiled.

More than ever I felt glad I was staying beside her.

Tiel sat in front and drove, and Eileen and I got in behind. He
offered no objections to this arrangement, though as she seated herself
while he was starting the engine, he was certainly not given much
choice. And then with a deep purr we rolled off into the night.

There would be no moon till getting on towards morning, but the rain
had luckily ceased and the wind fallen, and overhead the stars were
everywhere breaking through the last wisps of cloud. Already they gave
light enough to distinguish sea from land quite plainly, and very soon
they faintly lit the whole wide treeless countryside. The car was a
good one, however Tiel had come by it, and the engine was pulling well,
and we swept along the lonely roads at a great pace, one bare telegraph
post after another flitting swiftly out of the gloom ahead into the
gloom behind, and the night air rushing against our faces. At first I
looked round me and recognised some features of the way we had come,
the steep hill, and the sound that led to the western ocean, and the
dark mass of hills beyond, but very soon my thoughts and my eyes alike
had ceased to wander out of the car.

We said little, just enough to serve as an excuse for my looking
constantly at her profile, and, the longer I looked, admiring the more
every line and every curve. All at