Instead of being downcast, he rather brightened up at that remark. "You'll break my heart if you say that," he said, trying not to be too cheerful. "There's only one man for me!" I said firmly. "It's not fashionable, but it's very comforting. It's Day." "I'll never be the same man again, Fanny," he replied. "Am I not to call you up, or send you flowers, or look forward to seeing you at the Country Club on Sunday afternoons? Is life to lose all its joy?" "Oh, we'll have to meet, of course," I said largely; "but--the other is off for good, Ferd! I find I can't stand too much of you. You're too heady." Well, he was almost blithe over it, and sat talking about Ida, and what a trump she was about the time he lost so much on copper, and the way she came home from Nice when he had typhoid. It was stupid; but if you can understand me it seemed to put a cachet of respectability on our position. The more we talked about Day and Ida, the more we felt that the tongue of scandal could never touch us. We made a pact of platonic friendship, too, and shook hands on it; and it shows how dead the old affair was when Ferd never even kissed my hand. About an hour afterward the other car went back toward the island and we got up stiffly and crawled down the ladder. Ferd had had a nap, and he slept with his mouth open! We slipped out of the barn in the moonlight and reconnoitered. There was no one in sight and the house across the road was dark. Ferd took off the license plates and put them under one of the seat cushions and I looked for the short circuit. I found it at last, and Ferd fixed it with his pen-knife. Then he threw the doors open and we backed into the road. The last thing I remember is that as we started off a window was raised in the farmhouse and somebody yelled after us to stop. "Damnation!" said Ferd between his teeth. "He'll telephone ahead and they'll cut us off!" "We needn't stick to the main road. We can go back through the country." We found a lane leading off half a mile farther along and I turned into it. It was rough, but its very condition argued for safety. As Ferd said, no one in his sane mind would choose such a road. The secret of the lane came out a mile or so farther on, however, when it came to an end in a barnyard. It was a blow, really. We did not dare to go back and we could not possibly go ahead. "I can go up to the house and ask about the road," Ferd said. "The old stage road ought to be round here somewhere. If we can't find it there's nothing to do but to walk, Fan." "I can't walk," I said, "and I won't walk. I'm in my stocking feet. I'm through. Let's just go back and get arrested and have it over. I can't stand much more." "It's only twelve miles or so to town." "I couldn't walk twelve miles to escape hanging!"