e desk, paid her
bill and said what she had been told to say about her trunks. Beyond
that point she did not go, chiefly because she had forgotten and was too
numb with fatigue to care. The clerk's question as to her address failed
to reach her understanding; she turned away without responding and went
to join at the door the man who seemed able to sway her to his whim.

She found herself walking in the dusky streets, struggling to keep up
with the rapid pace set by the man at her side.

After some time they paused before a building in a side street. By its
low facade and huge sliding doors she dimly perceived it to be a private
garage. In response to a signal of peculiar rhythm knuckled upon the
wood by her companion, the doors rolled back. A heavy-eyed mechanic
saluted them drowsily. On the edge of the threshold a high-powered car
with a close-coupled body stood ready.

With the docility of that complete indifference which is bred of
deadening weariness, she submitted to being helped to her seat, arranged
her veil to protect her face and sat back with folded hands, submissive
to endure whatsoever chance or mischance there might be in store for
her.

The small man took the seat by her side; the mechanic cranked and jumped
to his place. The motor snorted, trembling like a thoroughbred about to
run a race, then subsiding with a sonorous purr swept sedately out into
the deserted street, swung round a corner into Broadway, settled its
tires into the grooves of the car-tracks and leaped northwards like an
arrow.

The thoroughfare was all but bare of traffic. Now and again they had to
swing away from the car-tracks to pass a surface-car; infrequently they
passed early milk wagons, crawling reluctantly over their routes.
Pedestrians were few and far between, and only once, when they dipped
into the hollow at Manhattan Street, was it necessary to reduce speed in
deference to the law as bodied forth in a balefully glaring, solitary
policeman.

The silken song of six cylinders working in absolute harmony was as
soothing as a lullaby, the sweep of the soft, fresh morning air past
one's cheeks as soft and quieting as a mother's caress. Eleanor yielded
to their influence as naturally as a tired child. Her eyes closed; she
breathed regularly, barely conscious of the sensation of resistless
flight.

Hot and level, the rays of the rising sun smote her face and roused her
as the car crossed McComb's Dam Bridge; and for a littl