over the waving tops. The car had gathered headway and swung out
into the road, when suddenly some one in it laughed and uttered an
exclamation in a foreign tongue. That musical note--a word he did not
understand--was wafted to Mr. Heatherbloom. It acted upon him like a
galvanic shock; he sprang to his feet and, bewildered, stared after the
machine. What had happened; was he dreaming? He could hardly at first
believe the evidence of his senses, for the laugh, coming back to him in
the night, was that of the woman for whom he had procured employment at
Miss Van Rolsen's. He could have sworn to the fact now. And the man
whose countenance he had so briefly seen was, no doubt, of her own
nationality--a Russian!

Involuntarily, without realizing what he did, Mr. Heatherbloom started
to run in the direction the car had gone, but he soon stopped. What
madness!--to attempt to catch a sixty-horse-power machine! Why, it was
nearly a mile away already. The young man stood stock-still while a
cogent reaction swept over him. The woman had passed within fifty feet
of where he had lain, head near the earth, moping. A mocking desire to
atone for a great remissness found him impotent. There seemed nothing
for him to do now but to reconcile himself to the irreconcilable, to
stay here, while every desire urged him to follow her, to learn why this
woman was in the car and who was with her. Naturally, he had expected
she would be on the yacht now steaming away out to sea, and here she
was. A new enigma confronted him.

Mr. Heatherbloom continued to stand in the center of the road. His head
whirled; he panted hard, out of breath from his recent dash. A loud
honk! honk! from another machine coming unexpectedly up behind, caused
him to leap aside just in time. The second car whizzed by, although
obeying an impulse born on the instant, he called out wildly, waving his
arms to bring it to a halt. If they saw his strange motions--which was
unlikely, the night being dark--they did not heed them. Soon the second
machine was some distance away; then its rear light gleamed like a
vanishing coal and suddenly disappeared altogether around a bend of the
road.

He looked back; no other vehicle of any description was in sight now.
But it profited nothing to continue passive, immovable. He had to act,
to walk on, no matter how slowly; his face, at least, was set in the
direction the woman had gone. How long it took him to reach the turn of
the thorough