he brother. "You've kept Peabody and me twelve hours
in the open air, and it's past two, and we're going to sleep. You can
take it from me that we are going to spend the rest of this night here
in this road."

He moved his cramped joints cautiously, and stretched his legs the full
width of the car.

"If you can't get plain water," he called, "get club soda."

He buried his nose in the collar of his fur coat, and the odors of
camphor and raccoon skins instantly assailed him, but he only yawned
luxuriously and disappeared into the coat as a turtle draws into its
shell. From the woods about him the smell of the pine needles pressed
upon him like a drug, and before the footsteps of his companions were
lost in the silence he was asleep. But his sleep was only a review of
his waking hours. Still on either hand rose flying dust clouds and
twirling leaves; still on either side raced gray stone walls, telegraph
poles, hills rich in autumn colors; and before him a long white road,
unending, interminable, stretching out finally into a darkness lit by
flashing shop-windows, like open fireplaces, by street lamps, by
swinging electric globes, by the blinding searchlights of hundreds of
darting trolley cars with terrifying gongs, and then a cold white mist,
and again on every side, darkness, except where the four great lamps
blazed a path through stretches of ghostly woods.

As the two young men slumbered, the lamps spluttered and sizzled like
bacon in a frying-pan, a stone rolled noisily down the bank, a white
owl, both appalled and fascinated by the dazzling eyes of the monster
blocking the road, hooted, and flapped itself away. But the men in the
car only shivered slightly, deep in the sleep of utter weariness.

In silence the girl and Winthrop followed the chauffeur. They had
passed out of the light of the lamps, and in the autumn mist the
electric torch of the owner was as ineffective as a glow-worm. The
mystery of the forest fell heavily upon them. From their feet the dead
leaves sent up a clean, damp odor, and on either side and overhead the
giant pine trees whispered and rustled in the night wind.

"Take my coat, too," said the young man. "You'll catch cold." He spoke
with authority and began to slip the loops from the big horn buttons.
It was not the habit of the girl to consider her health. Nor did she
permit the members of her family to show solicitude concerning it. But
the anxiety of the young man, did n