n he helped her to drop through the opening she had
entered, and called a shamefaced "good-by" after her in the dusk.

She hunted up the station-agent and received scanty encouragement:
Very likely he had seen such a man; there were many of that
description getting off every day. They generally went to the
Inn--Brambleside Inn. The season was just open and society people
were beginning to come. No, there was no conveyance. The Inn's 'buses
did not meet any train after the six-thirty from town, unless ordered
especially by guests. Was she expected?

Patsy was about to shake her head when a roadster swung around the
corner of the station and came to a dead stop in front of where she
and the station-master were standing.

The driver peered at her through his goggles in a questioning,
hesitating manner. "Is this--are you Miss St. Regis?" he finally
asked.

"Miriam St. Regis?" Patsy intended it for a question, realizing even
as she spoke the absurdity of inquiring the name of an English
actress at such a place.

But the driver took it for a statement of identity. "Yes, of course,
Miss Miriam St. Regis. Mr. Blake made a mistake and thought because
your box came from town you'd be coming that way. It wasn't until
your manager, Mr. Travis, telephoned half an hour ago that he
realized you'd be on that southbound train. Awfully sorry to have
kept you waiting. Step right in, please."

Whereupon the driver removed himself from the roadster, assisted her
to a seat, covered her with a rug--for early June evenings can be
rather sharp--and the next moment Patsy found herself tearing down a
stretch of country road with the purr of a motor as music to her
ears.

"Sure, I don't know who wrote the play and starred me in it," she
mused, dreamily, "but he certainly knows how to handle situations."

For the space of a few breaths she gave herself over completely to
the luxury of bodily comfort and mental inertia. It seemed as if she
would have been content to keep on whirling into an eternity of
darkness--with a destination so remote, and a mission so obscure, as
not to be of the slightest disturbance to her immediate
consciousness. All she asked of fate that moment was the blessedness
of nothing; and for answer--her mind was jerked back ruthlessly to
the curse of more complexities.

The lights of a large building in the distance reminded her there was
more work for her wits before her and no time to lose. "I must
think--think--t