Mrs. "Ted's" perplexity would have been comic from another point of
view than mine. To me it was like unto the frown of Jove. There was a
little pause before she spoke. "Was there ever such another man?" she
said. "If it was anyone but you, Page, I would tell that girl the
truth at once. Mr. Stoughton Page has not come for her, and has sent
no word. I see why, now, though I don't understand it all, by any means.
But--well, I am going to trust the rest to you, only--_remember_!"

I never liked Mrs. "Ted" as I did at that moment, and my liking was
not altogether selfish, either. As for her "Remember," it
was--significant.

But when she had followed Margery, and I was walking slowly down the
stairway, an appreciation of my own position began to obscure every
other feeling. A trickle of something cold seemed to pass down my
spine, and I am not accounted timid. In a haze I blundered over to the
table. There I had the sense to sit down and try to fit together the
few facts which must guide me.

The proposition shaped itself something like this: Given an automobile
and a young woman who believes you to be the husband of her dearest
friend--which you are not--how are you, without chaperon or voucher,
to deliver her, safely and without destruction of her faith in you or
of the good opinion of others for herself, into the keeping of this
other man's wife--residence unknown--at three o'clock in the morning?

I took up the premises separatively. First, the automobile. I lighted
the lamps and cranked the engine. The motor started sweetly, and
mentally I checked off the first item. Second, the young woman. I
recalled my experience of the evening, and decided that, as Mrs. "Ted"
trusted me, Margery would have no reason to distrust me. So far so
good. Third, "the safe delivery." That depended upon knowledge of the
place we were to reach, and of the roads thereto.

I hunted up a stableman, and asked him for the shortest and best route
to Mr. Stoughton Page's place. He gave me directions. I made him
repeat them. As the repetition was a little more confusing than the
original information, I thanked him and decided to stake my chances on
the apparent facts that the traveling was excellent and the distance
only eight miles. The devil of it was there were four turnouts. I
suspected that, before I was through, Mr. Stoughton Page's reputation
as an automobile driver would not be undamaged in the estimation of at
least one person. But fo