he must go faster, it was getting dark. But was
this the track after all,--it seemed to be fading out as the other had
done? She put on the gas and bumped heavily into a hidden rut. Quickly
she threw the clutch into low, and--more gas-- What was that? The wheel
did not grip, the engine would not pull,--the matchless Harmer Six was
helpless. Again and again Connie tried to extricate herself, but it was
useless. She got out and took her bearings. It was early evening, but
darkness was coming fast. The snow was drifting down from the mountains,
and the roads were nearly obliterated.

Connie was stuck, Connie was lost, for once she was unequal to the
emergency. In spite of her imperturbability, her serene confidence in
herself, and in circumstances, and in the final triumph of everything she
wanted and believed, Connie sat down on the step and cried, bitterly,
passionately, like any other young women lost in a snow-storm on the
plains. It did her good, though it was far beneath her dignity.
Presently she wiped her eyes.

She must turn on the lights, every one of them, so if any travelers
happened to come her way the signal would summon them to her aid. Then
she must get warm, one might freeze on a night like this. She put up the
curtains on the car and wrapped herself as best she could in rugs and
rain coats. Even then she doubted her ability to withstand the
penetrating chill.

"Well," she said grimly, "if I freeze I am going to do it with a pleasant
smile on my lips, so they will be sorry when they find me." Tears of
sympathy for herself came into her eyes. She hoped Prince would be quite
heart-broken, and serve him right, too. But it was terrible that poor
dear Carol should have this added sorrow, after all her years of trial.
And it was all Connie's own fault. Would women ever have sense enough to
learn that men must think of business now and then, and that even the
dearest women in the world are nuisances at times?

Well, anyhow, she was paying dearly for her folly, and perhaps other
women could profit by it. And all that literary material wasted. "But
it is a good thing I am not leaving eleven children motherless," she
concluded philosophically.

If men must think of business, and they say they must, there are times
when it is sheer necessity that drives and not at all desire. Prince
Ingram hated Brush that day with a mortal hatred. Only two days more of
Connie, and a few thousand silly shee