gedy and got married.

Just to dispel a little of the mist that befogged his brain, he waited
a while and then said:

"Which side of the car was opposite the doorway when those two men
attacked Mr. Hunter?"

"The left. The car had entered the street from Broadway."

"Why do you ask?" inquired Devar, instantly alive to the queerness of
this alteration of topics.

"My mind went back to the job we have in hand," said the roundsman
readily. "I was wondering just what sort of glimpse Mr. Curtis
obtained of the chauffeur. Of course, I see now that he was looking at
the man exactly under similar conditions when we made that stop at 42nd
Street."

Thus, unknown to either of the parties to the alliance, a minor crisis
was averted, because it may safely be conceded that the hard-headed
policeman would have refused then and there to accept any sort of
statement from such a lunatic as John Delancy Curtis, if he were given
a full, true, and particular account of the night's proceedings while
being whirled up Fifth Avenue in a fast moving automobile.

Romance, if it is to be accepted without question, requires the setting
of a comfortable armchair or tree-shaded nook in a summer garden.
There, forgetting and forgotten by the world, man or maid may indeed be
carried far on the Magic Carpet of Tangu, but, when served out by two
strangers to a prosaic policeman seated in a humming car, and bound
Heaven knew whither long after midnight, it is apt to savor of the moon
and witchcraft.

Away up the straight vista of Fifth Avenue sped the two cars. On the
left lay the black solitude of Central Park, on the right the varied
architecture of New York's millionaire dwellings.

Devar and the policeman talked cheerfully enough, but Curtis was
wrapped in his own musings till the rear lamp of the gray car suddenly
curved to the left and vanished.

"He has turned into the Parkway at 110th Street," said McCulloch, and
Curtis awoke with a start to a sense of his surroundings.

"I suppose he's making for St. Nicholas Avenue," went on the roundsman.

"Why?" demanded Curtis, whose recollections of map-study would have
reminded him, in other conditions, that the avenue named by McCulloch
is one of the few which slant across the city's rectangles.

"Well, sir, it's only a guess, but St. Nicholas Avenue is a short cut
to Washington Heights, and cars often follow that route. Yes, there he
goes!"

For an instant they caught a fleeting gl