The run was made without any mishap, and accomplished under three hours. It happened to be market day in Hillminster, the main street was crowded with vehicles, and Miss Susan could not but admire the neat and ready manner in which their driver steered amongst carts, wagons, gigs, and carriages, with practised dexterity. Presently they drove into the yard of the Rose Inn, and there alighted. Mr. Morven and his sister-in-law were lunching with the Dean in the Close, and Miss Susan notified to Owen, ere she left him, that she proposed to start at half-past two sharp, adding-- “For, if we are late, Miss Parrett is so nervous, you know.” The drive home began propitiously; but after a while, and in the mean way so peculiar to motors, the car, when they were about ten miles out of Hillminster, and a long distance from any little village or even farmhouse, began to exhibit signs of fatigue. For some time Wynyard coaxed and petted her; he got out of the machine several times and crawled underneath, and they staggered along for yet another mile, when there was a dead halt of over an hour. Here Miss Susan sat on the bank, talking with the fluency of a perennial fountain, and offering encouragement and advice. Once more they set out, and, before they had gone far, met a boy on a bicycle, and asked him the way to the nearest forge? With surprising volubility and civility, this boy told them to go ahead till they came to a certain finger-post, not to mind the finger-post, but to turn down a lane, and in a quarter of a mile they would come to the finest forge in the country! The misguided pair duly arrived at the finger-post, turned to the left as directed, and descended a steep lane--so narrow that the motor brushed the branches on either side, and Miss Susan wondered what would become of them if they met a cart? They crept on and on till they found themselves in some woods, with long grass drives or rides diverging on either side--undoubtedly they were now on the borders of some large property! The lane continued to get worse and worse--in fact, it became like the stony bed of a river, and the motor, which had long been crawling like some sick insect, finally collapsed, and, so to speak, gave up the ghost! The axle had broken; there it lay upon its side with an air of aggravating helplessness! and it was after six o’clock by Miss Susan’s watch! “Now,” she inquired, with wide-open eyes, “what is to be done?” “We must go and look for some farmhouse; I’m afraid you will have to pass the night there, Miss Susan, unless they can raise a trap of some sort!” “Oh, but I’m bound to get home,” she protested, “if I have to walk the whole way. How far should you say we were from Ottinge?” “Well, I’m not very sure--I don’t know this part of the country--but I should think about fifteen miles. You might manage to send a telegram to Miss Parrett,--in fact, I wouldn’t mind walking there myself, but of course I must stick by the car.”