ng tourists'
bureaux. At these places the verdict was an echo of our landlord's,
and I saw that Molly and Jack were glad. Having scented powder, they
would have been disappointed if the midnight battle need not be
fought.

Molly had never seen Lucerne, which was too beautiful for a fleeting
glance. It was arranged that, after driving me over the Pass, for weal
or woe, they should return. They would leave most of their luggage at
the Sonnenberg, and come back to spend some days, before continuing
their tour as originally mapped out.

We slept that night in peace (it is wonderful how well you do sleep,
even with a "mind diseased," after hours of racing through pure, fresh
air on a motor car); and next day we began stealthy preparations for
our adventure.

CHAPTER VI

The Wings of the Wind

"Oh, still solitude, only matched in the skies;
Perilous in steep places,
Soft in the level races,
Where sweeping in phantom silence the cloudland
flies."
--R. BRIDGES.

The wind howled a menace to Mercedes, as she glided down the winding
road towards the comfortable, domestic-looking suburbs of Lucerne.
Banks of cloud raced each other across the sky, and, crossing the
bridge over the Reuss, we saw that the waters of the Lake, turquoise
yesterday, were to-day a sullen indigo. The big steamers rolled at
their moorings; white-crested waves were leaping against the quays,
and thick mists clung like rolls of wool to the lower slopes of
Pilatus.

Molly's spirits rose as the mercury in the barometer fell. "Would you
care for people if they were always good-tempered, or weather if it
were always fair?" she asked me (we were sitting together in the
tonneau, Jack driving). "I revel in storms, and if we have one
to-night, when we are on the Pass, one of the dearest wishes of my
life will be gratified. 'A storm on the St. Gothard!' Haven't the
words a thunder-roll? Sunlight and mountain passes don't belong
together. I like to think of great Alpine roads as the fastnesses of
giants, who threaten death to puny man when he ventures into their
power."

It had been arranged that we should "potter" (as Winston called it)
round the arms of the star-fish lake, until we reached Flueelen; that
from there we should steal as far as we dared up the Reussthal while
daylight lasted, dine at some village inn, and then, instead of
returning to the lowlands of Lucerne, ma