gile edifice of her deception.

At last it was over, and all was ready for her to start back to town
with Dick. When Miss Sherwood kissed her and warmly begged her to come
again soon, the very last of her control seemed to be slipping from
her--but she held on. Larry and Hunt she managed to say goodbye to in
the manner of her new acquaintanceship.

"Isn't she simply splendid!" exclaimed Miss Sherwood when Dick had
stepped into the car and the two had started away.

Larry pretended not to have heard. He felt precariously guilty toward
this woman who had befriended him. The next instant he had forgotten
Miss Sherwood and his pulsing thoughts were all on Maggie in that
speeding car. She had been profoundly shaken by that afternoon's
experience, this much he knew. But what was going to be the real effect
upon her of his carefully thought-out design? Was it going to be such as
to save her and Dick?--and eventually win her for himself?

In the presence of Miss Sherwood Larry tried to behave as if nothing
had happened more than the pleasant interruption of an informal tea: but
beneath that calm all his senses were waiting breathless, so to speak,
for news of what had happened within Maggie, and what might be happening
to her.

CHAPTER XXV

When Maggie sped away from Cedar Crest in the low seat of the roadster
beside the happy Dick, she felt herself more of a criminal than at any
time in her life, and a criminal that miraculously was making her escape
out of an inescapable set of circumstances.

Beyond her relief at this escape she did not know these first few
minutes what she thought or felt. Too much had happened, and what had
happened had all turned out so differently from what she had expected,
for her to set in orderly array this chaos of reactions within herself
and read the meaning of that afternoon's visit. She managed, with a
great effort, to keep under control the outer extremities of her senses,
and thus respond with the correct "yes" or "no" or "indeed" when some
response from her was required by Dick's happy conversation.

Near Roslyn they swung off the turnpike into an unfrequented, shady
road. Dick steered to one side beneath a locust-tree and silenced the
motor.

"Why are you stopping?" she asked in sudden alarm.

"So we can talk without a piece of impertinent machinery roaring
interruptions at us," replied Dick with forced lightness. And then in
a voice he could not make light: "I want to ta