y put the telegraph into operation, and
discovered in a village four miles off an unfortunate boy riding a lady's
machine of an obsolete pattern. They brought him to her in a cart, but
as she did not appear to want either him or his bicycle they let him go
again, and resigned themselves to bewilderment.

Meanwhile, Harris continued his ride with much enjoyment. It seemed to
him that he had suddenly become a stronger, and in every way a more
capable cyclist. Said he to what he thought was Mrs. Harris:

"I haven't felt this machine so light for months. It's this air, I
think; it's doing me good."

Then he told her not to be afraid, and he would show her how fast he
_could_ go. He bent down over the handles, and put his heart into his
work. The bicycle bounded over the road like a thing of life; farmhouses
and churches, dogs and chickens came to him and passed. Old folks stood
and gazed at him, the children cheered him.

In this way he sped merrily onward for about five miles. Then, as he
explains it, the feeling began to grow upon him that something was wrong.
He was not surprised at the silence; the wind was blowing strongly, and
the machine was rattling a good deal. It was a sense of void that came
upon him. He stretched out his hand behind him, and felt; there was
nothing there but space. He jumped, or rather fell off, and looked back
up the road; it stretched white and straight through the dark wood, and
not a living soul could be seen upon it. He remounted, and rode back up
the hill. In ten minutes he came to where the road broke into four;
there he dismounted and tried to remember which fork he had come down.

While he was deliberating a man passed, sitting sideways on a horse.
Harris stopped him, and explained to him that he had lost his wife. The
man appeared to be neither surprised nor sorry for him. While they were
talking another farmer came along, to whom the first man explained the
matter, not as an accident, but as a good story. What appeared to
surprise the second man most was that Harris should be making a fuss
about the thing. He could get no sense out of either of them, and
cursing them he mounted his machine again, and took the middle road on
chance. Half-way up, he came upon a party of two young women with one
young man between them. They appeared to be making the most of him. He
asked them if they had seen his wife. They asked him what she was like.
He did not know enough Dutc