So, wearied out and thoroughly chilled by the keen night air, he first stuffed one of the cushions into the broken window, then sank back into a corner, and surrendered himself to his fate. For three long hours he sat there and was driven at a rapid pace, knowing not whither he was going. At last, to his infinite relief, the carriage stopped. Taking instant advantage of this circumstance, Geoffrey leaped to the ground, and turning furiously to the driver, he demanded what he meant by bringing him there. The man might have been a deaf mute for all the notice he took of either the young man’s question or passion. He neither spoke nor moved, except to quickly turn his horses about and drive rapidly back in the direction from which he had come, leaving his victim standing in the middle of a lonely road with not a house in sight. For a moment Geoffrey was so bewildered that he did not know what to do; he had not the slightest idea where he was, only he was sure that he must be miles and miles from Brooklyn. But his insufficient clothing but illy protected him from the cold, and he soon began to realize that he could not stand there long without great danger to himself. He began to walk rapidly, and soon found himself ascending a hill, and upon reaching the top he saw, beneath him, the lights of a small village gleaming through the darkness. Quickening his steps he reached it after ten or fifteen minutes, and, to his joy, discovered that a line of railway passed through it. Following this he soon came to the station, where he found a sleepy-looking agent and telegraph operator, who regarded him and his immaculate dress suit with undisguised astonishment. He inquired when the next train went to Brooklyn, and to his dismay learned that this was only a branch road, and that no train was due there for an hour. It was small comfort, too, to be told that it would be only a freight train with a passenger car attached—that it would stop at every station where there was freight to be delivered or taken up; that it would be a full hour reaching the main line, where he would have to wait another hour for a train to Brooklyn. All this delay he knew would prevent him from reaching home before midnight, and then there flashed upon him, for the first time, a suspicion that he had been brought to that remote place by no intoxicated driver’s freak, neither had he been the victim of a maniac’s frenzy, but that his abduction had been deliberately and cunningly planned to prevent his appearance at his own wedding—to hinder, if possible, his marriage with Gladys.