Then he retreated to the "office," and, dropping heavily into his desk
chair, stared unseeingly at a calendar on the wall.

"That lad's been up to somethin'," he muttered. "I wonder what my dooty
is."

It was a long moment before he remembered to open his hand and look at
the bill he was holding. As he did so his eyes widened. The bill was a
large one. It amounted to much more than the combined value of the bills
dropped into that willing palm during the day. Briskly and efficiently
it solved the little problem connected with Mr. Burke's "dooty." With a
quick look around him, he thrust it into his pocket.

"I ain't really _seen_ nothin'," he muttered, "an' I ain't sure of
nothin', anyhow."

* * * * *

"What has happened? Oh, Laurie, what has happened?"

For a time Laurie did not answer. Then she felt rather than saw his face
turn toward her in the darkness.

"Doris."

"Yes."

"Will you do something for me?"

"Yes, Laurie, anything."

"Then don't speak till we reach New York. When we get to your studio
I'll tell you everything. Will you do that?"

"But--Laurie--"

"Will--you--do--it?" The voice was not Laurie's. It was the harsh,
grating voice of a man distraught.

"Yes, of course."

Silence settled upon them like a substance, a silence broken only by the
roar of the storm and the crashing of wind-swept branches of the trees
that lined the road. The car's powerful search-lights threw up in
ghostly shapes the covered stumps and hedges they passed and the masses
of snow that beat against them. Subconsciously the girl knew that this
boy beside her, driving with the recklessness of a lost soul, was merely
guessing at a road no one could have seen, but in that half-hour she had
no thought for the hazards of the journey. Her panic had grown till it
filled her soul.

She wanted to cry out, to shriek, but she dared not. The compelling soul
in the rigid figure beside her held her silent. Her nerves began to play
strange tricks. She became convinced that the whole experience was a
nightmare, an incredible one from which she would wake if that terrible
figure so close to her, and yet so far away, would help her. But it
wouldn't. Perhaps it never would. The nightmare must go on and on. Soon
all sense of being in a normal world had left her.

Once, in a frantic impulse of need of human contact, she laid her hand
on the arm nearest her, over the wheel. The next instant she withdrew