its teeth and flung away like a thoroughbred
romping down the home-stretch. Its headlights clove a path through
darkness, like a splendid sword; a pale shining ribbon of road seemed to
run to the wheels as if eager to be devoured; on either hand woodlands
and desolate clearings blurred into dark and rushing walls; the wind
buffeted the faces of the travellers like a soft and tender hand,
seeking vainly if with all its strength to withstand their impetus: only
the wonderful wilderness of stars remained imperturbable.

Whitaker, braced against the jolting, snatched begrudged mouthfuls of
air strong of the sea. From time to time he caught fugitive glimpses of
what seemed to be water, far in the distances to the right. He had no
very definite idea of their whereabouts, having neglected through sheer
indifference to question Ember, but he knew that they were drawing
minute by minute closer to the Atlantic. And the knowledge was soothing
to the unquiet of his soul, who loved the sea. He dreamed vaguely, with
yearning, of wave-swept shores and their sonorous silences.

After some time the car slowed to a palpitant pause at a spot where the
road was bordered on one hand by a woods, on the other by meadow-lands
running down to an arm of a bay, on whose gently undulant surface the
flame-tipped finger of a distant lighthouse drew an undulant path of
radiance.

Ember jumped out to open a barred gate, then returning swung the car
into a clear but narrow woodland road. "Mine own domain," he informed
Whitaker with a laugh, as he stopped a second time to go back and close
the gate. "Now we're shut of the world, entirely."

The car crawled cautiously on, following a path that, in the searching
glare of headlights, showed as two parallel tracks of white set apart by
a strip of livid green and walled in by a dense tangle of scrub-oak and
pine and second growth. Underbrush rasped and rattled against the
guards. Outside the lighted way arose strange sounds audible above even
the purring of the motor--vast mysterious whisperings and rustlings:
stealthy and murmurous protests against this startling trespass.

Whitaker bent forward, inquiring: "Where are we?"

"Almost there. Patience."

Whitaker sat back again, content to await enlightenment at the pleasure
of his host. Really, he didn't much care where they were: the sense of
isolation, strong upon his spirit, numbed all his curiosity.

He reckoned idly that they must have threaded a