rmed a smile, a forced, crooked smile; "I
meant what I said, too, or I wouldn't have refused. Likewise I also have
a presentiment--of a different kind. Good-bye."

"Steve!"

"No."

And that was all.

Out in the long street, University Row, glided the big red roadster;
slowly through the city limits, more rapidly through the suburbs, then,
as the open country beyond came to view, it began gradually to find
itself.

"Want to see her go, do you, Elice?" asked Roberts, as the town behind
them grew indistinct in a fog of dust.

"Yes, if you wish."

"If I wish." Roberts brought the goggles down from his forehead
significantly. "If I wish," he repeated, the inflection peculiar. He
looked ahead. The broad prairie road, dust white in its July whiteness,
stretched straight out before them, without a turn or a curve, direct as
the crow flies for forty miles, and on through two counties, as he knew.
A light wind, begot of their motion alone, played on their faces, mingled
with the throbbing purr of the engine in their ears. "If I wish," for the
third time; and notch by notch the throttle began to open.

On they went, the self-evolved breeze a gale now, the throb of the big
motor a continuous moan, the cloud of dust behind them a dull brown bank
against the sky. On they went over convex grades that tilted gently first
to the right, then to the left, over culverts that spoke one single note
of protest, over tiny bridges that echoed hollow at the impact; past
dazzling green cornfields and yellow blocks of ripening grain, through
great shadows of homestead groves and clumps of willows that marked the
lowest point of swales, on--on--

Roberts leaned over close, but his eyes did not leave the road for the
fraction of a second.

"Afraid, girl?" he asked.

"No."

Again the man looked ahead. They were fair in the open now, already far
from the city. It was the heat of a blistering Sunday and not a team or
a pedestrian was astir. Ahead, for a mile, for miles perhaps, as far as
they could see, not an animate dot marred the surface of the taut,
stretched, yellow-white ribbon.

"Shall I let her out, Elice?"

"Yes."

"Sure you're not afraid--in the least?"

"Certain."

Again the throttle lever and its companion spark began to move around the
tiny sextant, approaching nearer and nearer. Simultaneously, sympathetic,
as though actuated by the same power, the hand of the speedometer on the
dash began to crawl up and up. They